


faster than a hairpin trigger

by medeaa



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, F/M, Friends With Benefits, Pining, annabeth's out here for a good time, it's a fwb story folks there's gonna be sex, percy just wants to cuddle
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-23
Updated: 2019-08-28
Packaged: 2019-10-14 22:22:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 37,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17516918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/medeaa/pseuds/medeaa
Summary: Percy swears there was a transition from the moment the blinking red “ON AIR” light went on for the first time to praying that no one would need the office while his cohost was unbuckling his belt with practiced fingers. There must have been. He just can’t quite remember exactly, because the second Annabeth looked at him with those eyes, he promptly lost all executive brain function.or, alternatively,A dead-end radio gig turns into something messier than Percy expected or Annabeth wanted. Grover’s just trying to keep up. The radio host fwb AU no one asked for.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> [The aftermath of her casual touching is always the same: Percy struggling to breathe through his constricting chest and trying to banish thoughts of dragging her closer and kissing her until she can’t multiply three by four, let alone remember her own name.]

Percy’s nervous.

Really, really nervous.             

But he’s also really broke and really desperate and really craving real food after an entire week of ramen and canned tuna that tasted a lot like cat food, so he musters whatever courage he can scrounge up and pushes open the glass door to the studio. It’s a dingy little music shop inside, with dank carpeting, harsh fluorescent light fixtures, and shelf upon shelf of labeled cassettes, CDs, vinyl records that make him drool a little. It smells like an attic, in a good way, and Percy thinks to himself that this isn’t the worst place to spend his Thursday evenings, even if it means having the constant anxiety of accidentally pressing the wrong button hanging over his head. The radio is playing softly on the intercom; Percy can hear a guy telling a story about something straight out of the Frat Boy Bible.

By the back corner, he spots a sort of booth, boxed in with top-half windows, bottom-half white peeling walls. Inside, he can just make out a mess of heavy black cables and wires and blinking lights in the dim lighting that make this feel like more of what it is: a college radio station. The biggest light he can see is a panic-alarm sort of red, under which sits a sign that reads in white letters on a black background: ON AIR. Then he notices that there’s someone in there, with a headset and their face to a microphone, the moving mouth matching up with the audio piping over the intercom. Percy vaguely recognizes him as a senior who enters the econ lecture hall after his elective class finishes. He’s wearing a bright red beanie that covers his blond hair- it’s the brightest thing in the dingy corner.

Percy walks around awkwardly, trying to figure out who he’s supposed to talk to about his new job. He’s in as much shock as the next person that he actually landed it. He has no idea how he passed the phone interview, and he barely remembers filling out the application. All he knows is that every Thursday night from now on, he has to talk for a while without swearing in between songs and try to be funny, and in exchange he can buy some apples and get Spotify Premium again. And also play We Is Shore Dedicated on the real actual radio.

He awkwardly makes his way over to the booth, where he sees that it’s actually much bigger than he originally thought, the extension blocked by a huge shelf filled with jazz classics. Inside, there’s a guy with a scraggly goatee, wildly curly brown hair, a rasta cap, and the flannel that Percy thinks he saw the homeless guy outside his old building wear. He looks confused and dazed, but maybe that’s just his round glasses. Once he spots Percy, his expression brightens and he scurries to open the door to the booth and closes it quietly behind him. He walks with a limp, Percy notices. Like he has hooves. And then he wonders why he used that simile, it’s a little weird.

“Hey,” he says, and Percy gets a load of pungent espresso-breath. He reaches out with both hands to shake one of Percy’s. “You must be Percy, I’m really glad you applied. I’m Grover, I’m on tech. Luke will be wrapping up his broadcast soon.”

“Thanks for having me,” he says, remembering that it’s probably not good work etiquette to add on _I have no idea why you did though._

Grover leads him over to the booth and lets him through. Percy checks his watch: 7:51. They start on the hour, just after prime time rush. He’s been briefed on what he’s expected to do, that the program mostly consists of caller requests, a few of his and his cohost’s own choosing, and a little bit of banter in between. _Mostly music,_ Grover had assured him. _It’s not scripted but I’m sure you and Annabeth will hit it off._

Percy had been wondering ever since he found out he got the job what his cohost would be like. With a name like Annabeth Chase, he figured she would be in a sorority, and that they might have some inane conversation about- something, Percy didn’t even know what- and then they’d call it a night until the next week. When he sees her, sitting in a folding chair in the far corner with her nose buried in a hardback textbook, she isn’t anything like he’s expecting.

Percy feels like he’s been struck by a thunderbolt. He’s vaguely aware that he’s stopped just inside the doorway. That’s secondary to him right now, really, since the only thing he can really feel in his own body is the pounding of his heart.

He’s in love. And no, he didn’t ask for anyone’s opinion, valid or not, thank you very much.

She’s _gorgeous_. She’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen. She makes him think of the Empire State Building, tall and proud and glorious and graceful. She makes him think of Long Island Sound during hurricane season from the inside of the cabin, controlled catastrophe, just waiting to happen. She makes him think about the ratty T-shirt he’s wearing and hopes there aren’t any stains that decide to magically appear. Her hair is gold, _real gold_ , and falls down her back in princess curls. Her legs go on forever. He can’t see her eyes behind her square-frame glasses, but the intensity with which she’s studying the page in front of her could burn a hole into it. He wants to take this girl out for coffee. He wants to introduce her to his mom. He wants to go for a long walk in Central Park holding her hand and share an ice cream cone.

He wants her to look up from her goddamn book for one goddamn second.

“Um, Percy?”

Grover’s voice snaps him out of whatever haze he’s gone into. He looks up and sees that Grover’s moved to where he failed to notice a second chair, right next to Annabeth. She still hasn’t looked up. He obligingly goes over but doesn’t sit, and instead tries to think of something to say. He checks his watch again: 7:52.

How has it only been a minute since he last checked?

Grover mumbles something about, “I’ll just let you two get acquainted, then…” before he trots off to start fiddling around with some complicated-looking tech stuff as the guy at the mic- Luke, he thinks his name is- now accepts some callers.

Percy sits and, once that garners no reaction from Annabeth, tries to find a way to sink into the floor without drawing too much attention to himself. He can’t stop his foot tapping erratically to the beat of the song that’s being played on the request of someone for their boyfriend’s birthday. He thinks he recognizes Kaleo but he’s too distracted by the tiny sounds she makes as she runs a pencil under some of the passages on the page. It’s thick with text, but spaced out like a script.

“So,” he says, surprising himself. “It’s 7:55.” Percy looks to the side hopefully. She hums a little, acknowledging that she heard him, and then returns to carefully circling and underlining passages.

Percy’s really frustrated by now. He signed up for a way to be able to afford groceries, not for an hour-long snub-fest from the prettiest but rudest girl he’s ever seen in his life.

“Look,” he snaps, letting his New York accent come through a little bit in his anger. Annabeth’s pencil pauses but she never looks up. He knows he oversteps his bounds when he reaches over and plucks the pencil right from between her fingers, but he doesn’t want to mess up tonight. Not on his first day.

Annabeth looks up then, and Percy feels the breath knocked out of him. He’s not one to be all poetic and go on about her eyes, but the way the black rims on her glasses make her gray irises sharper does things to his chest. She snaps the book closed and he can finally make out the cover, although the gilded font does nothing for his dyslexia: _An Anthology of the Neoclassical Works of William Shakespeare._ He feels smarter just looking at it. He stops thinking about it once he sees the steely look in her eyes.

“Excuse me.” Her voice is so cold that he thinks his ears have frostbite. “I’m fairly certain that pencil doesn’t belong to you, and I’m equally as certain that I don’t really have an obligation to talk to you.”

Percy gapes at her.

“Now, if you’re done, I have a broadcast to do.” She goes to yank her pencil out of his hands but Percy holds tight. _What does she mean,_ she _has a broadcast to do?_

“What the hell are you talking about?” Percy says, letting his frustration and confusion come out in every syllable. His accent sounds ridiculous even to him, at this point. He glares at her, and he just gets madder once he sees all she does is scoff.

“Seriously,” she bites out, “it’s cutting close and some random is not going to ruin my show.”

“Some- _random?_ ” Percy splutters. Now he’s just really, really confused. Did- ? “Grover. Can you come over for a second.”

Grover comes over, and Percy can tell that he feels the tension in the air from the way he digs a stick of gum out of his pocket and starts chewing like this life depends on it. He glances down at the time again and starts to get worried. If this doesn’t clear up quickly, they’re in for a whole lot of trouble. In the background, he can hear Luke saying, “And that is how I ended up getting dreadlocks when I was eighteen. To wrap up for tonight, here’s Birth of Afro Space Team by Revolution Void. Goodnight everyone!” Percy can barely stop himself from rolling his eyes.

“Is. Is there a problem, guys?” Grover asks tentatively.

“Could you help us figure some things out here, Grover? Everything’s a bit all over the place,” Percy says. He feels equally vindicated and infuriated by the little look of disdain Annabeth throws him. _God,_ it’s like she thinks she owns the place and he doesn’t even belong here. “I’m really sorry, but I don’t know how the fuck I’m supposed to work with someone this rude.”

Annabeth looks like he just slapped her grandmother. “Excuse me? Who do you think you are, swearing at me and insulting me to my face?” She starts to rise from her chair and then sits back down again with a _plop_ , like she just realized something. “And what do you mean, ‘work with me’? Grover?”

Somehow, in the back of his mind, Percy finds the expression she’s making right now, with her nose all scrunched up and her mouth puckered like she just sucked on a lemon, really cute. Adorable, really. _Now is not the time, Jackson. Pull yourself together._

Grover laughs nervously and runs a hand over the back of his neck. He pops another stick of gum in his mouth, and Percy doesn’t think he notices that he forgot to take off the wrapper. “Oh, haha, you guys are cohosts, didn’t I mention that, Annabeth?”

Annabeth throws him a look like _cut the crap_ and throws Percy some seriously murderous side-eye. “Grover, you’re not honestly telling me that I have to actually _work_ with this asshole?”

“Who’re you calling an asshole, wise guy!” Percy snaps. He glances down at his watch and his face drains of colour. It’s 7:59. “Shit,” he hisses.

Annabeth’s face drops and Grover doesn’t seem to know whether to laugh or cry. Instead, he settles for, “Have a nice night, Luke!” as the blond guy gives a light-hearted wave and exits the building, and hurriedly begins switching discs and pulling out wires and thank God Grover was organized and asked for their track lists before they got here because the second whatever electronica-fusion garbage Luke signed off with fades out, a catchy bit of pop riff and a smooth voice announcing which station this is segues in the gap before some scrappy guitar starts playing. Percy tilts his head.

“The King of Carrot Flowers Part 1?” he says aloud, and starts when Annabeth replies shakily, “My choice.”

They look at each other and grimly make their way over to the desk, where two microphones have been set up next to two sets of headphones. They’ve reached an unspoken impasse that says _This isn’t finished, but I’m scared shitless of messing up so let’s just get through this hour first._  Or maybe Percy’s just projecting a bit.

Grover leans over the top of a cardboard box and tells them in a gentle voice, “Since this is your first night I’ll be handling all your transitions and stuff, just give me the signal when you need it. Once you’ve gotten more confident I’ll pass it off to you guys next week and you can even start adding in sound effects and things.” Percy gives a strained smile and a thumbs-up. Annabeth looks like she’s giving herself a pep talk before she charges into an arena full of gladiators. _It’s just a college radio station,_ Percy thinks to himself. _How much could go wrong, really?_

Turns out, a lot more than he thought.

The song starts winding down, and Percy rams his headphones over his head. He breathes loudly, and some of the sound ghosts over the ending chords. Annabeth throws him a glare and he clamps his lips shut. He turns to stare out the window at the wall of cassettes right in front of him, but he can still feel her eyes on him. Grover waves at them from his periphery and Percy starts saying, “Thanks for joining us today on-” except he’s not the only one talking and they both pause a second in the middle of a jumbled mess of consonants and vowels to stare at each other. Annabeth throws him a look that says _What the fuck are you doing?_ and Percy responds with an equally antsy _What the fuck are_ you _doing?_

Grover face-palms. Honest to goodness face-palms. Percy doesn’t think he’s seen anyone do that since 2013.

“Welcome to The Underclassmen Takeover, where underclassmen finally get a broadcasting spot in this big bad upperclassmen world.” Annabeth speaks in a steely voice, ploughing on like nothing happened. Her face is too close to the mic and Percy gets an earful of static and wet consonants. Grover adds in a cheering sound effect and Annabeth’s expression softens for a second to give him a grateful smile. Percy swears all the breath leaves his body because as much of an asshole as she’s been in the ten minutes he’s known her, Annabeth is beautiful when she smiles.

He hates it.

“We’ve got a playlist queued up but if there’s a song you absolutely want to hear us play, just give us a call at 212-954-3141. That’s 212-954-3141, and you just heard The King of Carrot Flowers Pt. 1 by Neutral Milk Hotel.” Annabeth takes a breath now and looks at Grover where he smiles and gives her a thumbs-up. Percy, meanwhile, is just trying to get a word in edgewise. He’s not going to sit here the whole time and let her talk up a storm, like she’s planning on doing from the looks of it.

“Before we really begin this broadcast,” Percy says, and then panics, because his mic isn’t turned on and the silence on air is deafening. Annabeth looks at him like she wants to kill him. In the calm part of his mind, Percy doesn’t blame her. He scrambles to turn it on and repeats what he just said; he’s relieved to hear his voice, and for some reason Annabeth is still looking at him like he has no right to speak, like it’s _her_ show. “I want to give a huge shout-out to Thalia Grace, who is no longer an underclassman, but manned this show for the past year. If you’re listening, thanks Thalia, and wish us luck!”

Annabeth throws in a light laugh that Percy knows is fake but sounds convincing enough. He tries to resist the urge to roll his eyes. He fails. “’Us’, by the way, is Annabeth Chase, sophomore, double-majoring in architecture and classics and…”

Percy realizes with a little offence that she doesn’t even know his name. He jumps in a little too late for the pause not to be awkward, too lost in his own bitterness. “Percy Jackson, also a sophomore, majoring in marine biology and underclassmen swim team captain.”

Annabeth gives him a look that he can’t really interpret. He’s too distracted by the way she slowly drags her eyes down and gives him a once-over, as if trying to see for herself whether he’s really swim team captain. She continues on. “And we’re here with our steadfast producer, Grover Underwood.” Grover adds a fanfare sound effect and Annabeth laughs, for real this time. The little tinkling notes pierce straight into Percy’s heart. 

“To show just how happy we are to be here with you, here’s The Kooks’ Junk of the Heart.” Percy’s impressed with himself for that line, he’s not going to deny it.

Grover presses a switch and the music starts playing, and Percy switches off his mic and leans back in his chair, breathing a loud sigh of relief. He takes off his headphones and sets them on the desk, and only now realizes how hard his heart was beating. He congratulates himself for not swearing a single time.

Grover trots over and pats them both on the shoulder. Annabeth blinks at the contact and jerks her head up to look at him. “Great job guys, really good, especially for your first time. There’s about twenty minutes of music lined up, so you can take a break until about five minutes before. I’m DJ-ing tonight but next week that’s all on you.”

“Grover,” Annabeth says, in a much warmer tone than she speaks to Percy. “Why don’t you have your own show? You’re obviously cut out for it.”

Grover grins a bit sheepishly. “I had one for a while, but eventually we started getting complaints about all the Hillary Duff I was playing, so now it’s Luke’s show.”

Percy snorts. Annabeth gives him another unreadable look. She gets up and pads over to the chair she was at before, where she grabs her book and pencil and then returns. She sits without looking at Percy and opens it to the page she was at before. He double-checks that his mic is off before he leans over and tries to look her in the face.

“Look,” Percy says in a low voice, “I’m sorry we got off to a bad start.” He doesn’t mention that it was entirely her fault. “But if we’re gonna be working together, we need to be able to talk.”

Annabeth pauses and then huffs, sets her pencil down. She turns to look him in the eye, and there’s still something unfriendly in her gaze. There’s a strange sort of tension in the air that Percy can’t quite put his finger on. He tries to not let his eyes linger on the curve of her neck. (And he certainly doesn’t think about how it would look covered in red and purple bite marks.) She takes off her glasses and sets them down on the desk, and he can’t help feeling like she looks less intimidating now. But still intimidating enough to make Percy feel a little light-headed, in that way that some girls can be so beautiful they’re scary.

“Okay. First things first.” Her tone is sharp, and Percy internally rolls his shoulders back and cracks his knuckles, ready to let out some of the frustration that’s been bubbling up inside him ever since she pulled that stupid attitude. “I didn’t want a cohost. I wouldn’t have applied for this job if I knew I had one, but I’m here, so I might as well follow through.”

Percy opens his mouth to let out a snappy retort but she holds a finger up. He feels like he’s just been slapped. There’s no way she just _scolded him like he was a naughty child._

And why the _hell_ did he find that hot?

“Second. I wouldn’t have minded working with someone if they’d been half civil in the first place and didn’t feel like they had the right to walk all over me.” Her expression is rapidly turning into a sneer and it’s making Percy see red.

“So, I guess what I’m trying to say is stay out of my way, let me run this show, and things will work out fine between us.” With that, she turns around sharply and picks up her textbook again.

Percy grabs her arm and yanks her to face him, which shocks himself as much as it shocks her. “Listen, here, _wise girl._ You’re the one who started this whole shit show and if anyone has to apologize here, it’s not me.”

“Are you really sure? Because I’m pretty I’m not the one who’s been manhandling other people!” she yells, her face turning red. Percy drops her arm like he’s been burned. He isn’t sure whether he’s hoping for Grover to come back from his bathroom break soon or to not come back for a long time. Percy opens his mouth to apologize, because if there’s one thing his mom taught him, it’s to respect other people’s space and consent, but before he can get the words out-

“And maybe you would be able to get all that fucking seaweed out of your brain if you could just get your head out of your ass!”

“So now you’re just going to start insulting my major?” he yells back, feeling blood rush to his face and pound in his ears. “Now you’re just turning this into an unprovoked personal attack! Jesus- _fuck_ , you’re the biggest asshole I’ve ever met.”

“Oho, that’s a big word,” Annabeth says scathingly. “Do you even know what it means?”

Percy starts to get up from his chair and he’s not even sure what he was about to do when Grover opens the door and walks back in. He pulls out an earbud and Percy can hear some sort of flute music piping out of it. He tries to calm down, if only for the sake of keeping his job. Also he doesn’t really want to disappoint Grover; he has that kind of face.

 “Everything alright guys?” he asks cautiously, like he knows that something happened but it’s their call about how they want to deal with it.

“Everything’s fine, Grover,” Annabeth calls out sweetly. What a calculative shrew. But he knows why she isn’t ratting him out: talking about it means that he wins, somehow. Percy doesn’t know how he follows her logic, he just knows that in his angry lizard brain, it makes sense.

Grover walks back over to the soundboard and doesn’t notice the bit of toilet paper stuck to his shoe. Percy doesn’t have the heart to tell him about it. The last song in the queue is beginning to wind down, and Percy resolutely jams on his headphones and switches his mic on.

“You’re listening to The Underclassmen Takeover with Percy and Annabeth on Olympus Air. Those were the sweet sounds of Teenage Miracle by TOWER.”

Percy cuts in as soon as he can and he doesn’t even have to look to his right to know that Annabeth is giving him a baleful glare.

“Now, on the topic of teenagers, I got into a debate with someone a few days ago about whether Smells Like Teen Spirit or Teenage Dream is the iconic teen anthem, and _obviously,_ Nirvana wins this one. But what about you, Annabeth, what do you think?” Percy feels himself slipping into what he calls a “radio voice” and it’s affecting his syntax and he’s positively gleeful that he’s forced her into this inane exchange where they have to sound friendly and bubbly.

“Well Percy,” she begins, and her tone drips flirtatiousness. For a second, Percy pretends that they don’t hate each other and he takes a deep breath. His heart stutters a little. “The real question here is whether the lyrics live up to the teenage experience. Did you feel contagious and stupid, or did you get so turned on you couldn’t sleep?”

Percy has to make himself look at her when she’s speaking, because if he doesn’t keep her mean expression in mind he’s going to start getting a little flustered with the way her voice has gone smooth and a little breathy. Why was she allowed to be this awful but also this attractive?

Annabeth grins like she knows exactly what she’s doing and Percy doesn’t know whether he’s angry or just really turned on. Maybe both.

“Let us know what you think at 212-954-3141. I’m expecting some stout defence on both sides, people.” Annabeth looks to Grover after this and he smiles gently, saying softly, “I’ve got some callers lined up, just press this button.”

The rest of the show passes in the same vein, with Percy trying to regain his footing, Annabeth deliberately trying to wind him up when she knows he can’t retaliate, and them chatting like old friends to callers who request songs and speak impassionedly about their nostalgia for high school. Finally, _finally,_ the hour is up, and Annabeth presents her last song choice before the night-long hit mix starts playing.

“Here to wrap us up is Good Old War with Tell Me What You Want from Me. Thank you for listening; we’ll be back next week at 8 PM.”

“Have a good night everyone!” Percy adds on, and then drums start playing and Grover flashes them a thumbs-up to say “all clear” as the red light goes out and Percy switches off his mic, takes of his headphones, and slumps back in his chair and breathes a long sigh of relief. That was the longest and most tiring hour of his life, including every conditioning day.

Okay, maybe not including every conditioning day. Those are hell.

“That was great you guys, really.” Grover’s cheery voice floats over to them from behind the soundboard where he’s bending down and fiddling with something.

“Thanks Grover,” he calls, honest and raw. Percy didn’t think he would, but he really does enjoy presenting. It’s just the blonde harpy beside him that ruins it a bit. He runs a hand through his hair and tips his head back, letting his chair tilt onto its back legs. He’s ready to go home and have a long shower. Or maybe even a bath. A bath sounds nice actually.

Annabeth gets up and stalks away, where she calls a cheery, “See you next week, Grover!” and swiftly exits the building. Her departure is sudden and takes Percy aback but he’s not complaining. He sets his chair back on the floor and gets up to turn to Grover, who’s winding lengths of cable into a more manageable loop.

“Can I help with anything?” Percy offers. He rubs the back of his neck, a little awkwardly.

“Oh, um, no, it’s fine,” Grover says, looking at him strangely. “Actually no. Can you. Um. I know you and Annabeth didn’t have the best start-” Percy snorts. “-and that might have been my fault and I’m really sorry but I don’t think this is something that I can fix and like. I know it’s not really my place to ask except it kind of _is_ and it’s unfair to put this all on you but-”

“I’ll try,” Percy cuts him off mid-ramble, and Grover looks grateful.

“Thanks Percy,” he breathes. “It was really worrying me and you guys did a good job of covering it up on air but I could feel the tension and Juniper hates it when I take bad energy inside the house.”

“Your girlfriend?” Percy asks.

“Yeah,” Grover sighs, his face turning wistful. “We would be married by now except that she believes that marriage is an institution of oppression and I agree but we’ve been living together since graduation.” He sets his cables down and starts organizing folders on the shelf behind him.

“That’s…that’s really special, Grover, I’m happy for you. What does she do?”

The dreamy look intensifies. “We met at a Conservation International rally.”

Percy sees that Grover isn’t going to come back from his thoughts any time soon and moves to shrug on his jacket that he’s draped over the back of his chair. He pauses when he sees the embossed cover of _An Anthology of the Neoclassical Works of William Shakespeare_ lying on the table. Percy suddenly feels a rush of resentfulness. Why did his mom have to raise him to be a good person?

“Grover?” he calls without looking back. He keeps staring at the cover and wonders if picked it up, would he be able to feel the heat of her hands?

“Yeah?”

“Do you have Annabeth’s number? She left her textbook here.”

***

>>To Annabeth: hey, u left ur textbook at the studio [sent 8:23 PM]

>>To Annabeth: where can i give it back [sent 8:23 PM]

>>From Annabeth: Where did you get my number? [sent 8:57 PM]

>>To Annabeth: grover [sent 8:59 PM]

>>To Annabeth: hey look…im sorry about today [sent 9:34 PM]

>>To Annabeth: do u think we can start over and move on [sent 9:34 PM]

>>From Annabeth: Meet me at the Starbucks next to the astronomy department. Tomorrow at 4. [sent 9:44 PM]

>>To Annabeth: ill be there [sent 9:45 PM]

***

The scent of caramel and roasted coffee beans fills Percy’s senses as soon as he steps into the crowded Starbucks. He’s always liked this smell; it makes him feel safe and warm and reminds him of his mom’s hugs back when she was working at a coffee shop, before she’d met Gabe.

He waits patiently in line, tapping his foot and rubbing quarters together in his pocket. Yes, he’s going to pay for his caramel macchiato in small change. No, he’s not embarrassed about that.

Maybe a little.

He orders and gets his coffee before he starts scanning the shop for Annabeth because it’s going to be awkward and the least he can do is give himself something to hide behind. He takes a sip and it burns the flat of his tongue but that’s fine because the barista added a little too much caramel sauce, just how he likes it. He sees her in the alcove by the corner, a shiny chrome laptop open in front of her and her hair pulled up into a knitted beanie. He wants to pull it off and run his hands through her hair, find out what kind of shampoo she uses. He wants to share a caramel macchiato with her after a long walk in the cold, holding hands. He wants to push her glasses up when they start slipping down from how intensely she’s staring at the screen in front of her.

He wants to stop fantasizing about romantic domesticity when he’s literally only here to return the textbook she forgot because she was too busy trying to get away from him after they spent a full hour arguing and spewing some pretty petty insults and revenge tactics.

“Hey,” he says, dropping into the chair across from her. Annabeth looks up and Percy can barely keep up with the flash of emotions on her face before she settles on something in between guilty, angry, and uncomfortable. She takes off her glasses and Percy doesn’t know whether he’s grateful or not.

“Hey,” she says, softly, and it’s so different from how she spoke to him yesterday. She cradles her mug in both hands (a London Fog, according to the Sharpie scribble on the sleeve) and blows across the top.

“So.” Percy reaches into his coat pocket and draws out the textbook. He places it on the table and she doesn’t immediately snatch it up, which confuses him, and then he’s confused about why he’s confused. Shakespeare’s bored expression stares up at the ceiling.

“I’m sorry,” she blurts, and Percy’s really surprised now. She chews on her bottom lip and he can’t tear his eyes away. “I…I thought a lot about what happened yesterday and while it wasn’t entirely my fault it was still partially my fault and I’m really sorry for how I acted. It wasn’t mature and I didn’t have the right to treat you like I did.”

Percy can feel his face softening. There’s a surge of warmth in his chest. He wraps his hands more securely around his mug to stop himself from doing something stupid like taking her hand or brushing the hair off her cheek or holding her face. “It’s- it’s not just you. I’m sorry too, it was out of line.” He looks up hopefully. “Can we start over? Like. Put this behind us, water under the bridge or whatever.”

Annabeth laughs a little. She seems relieved that he’s not grilling her for yesterday. If he’s honest, he’s just as embarrassed.

“Is making bad water-related metaphors part of your curriculum criteria?” she asks, kicking his ankle gently under the table. It feels like a yes. Percy runs a hand through his hair and grins, maybe a little too big. He doesn’t really care if it is.

“Is being snobby about figurative language part of yours?” he asks, kicking her ankle back. He nearly bites his tongue off when she hooks her ankle round his, his jeans riding up and his skin burning from the contact with hers. She rolls her eyes, and this time there’s no mistaking the fondness. If this is how he’s going to die, it’s not too bad a way to go.

“So, Shakespeare?” he says in a would-be-casual voice. “I didn’t think he was classical.” He takes a long swig of his coffee, trying to get the burn in his throat to ground him. The last of his short-lived but killer grudge against her dissolved sometime between him sliding her textbook on the table in front of them and her locking her ankle around his and he’s dizzy with how he feels when she directs that teasing smile at him. He doesn’t think anything of the fact that she’s done a complete one-eighty since they apologized. So has he. He’s just glad that they now have a solid foundation for a good professional relationship.

Well, maybe not purely professional. Percy is a weak, weak man.

“He’s not,” she replies, idly rubbing her leg against his and Percy is _burning_. “But we’re doing a module on neoclassicism in my lecture and Shakespeare’s pretty standard neoclassical repertoire, even if some of his work is a little bit saucy.”

Percy doesn’t think he can stand her drawing lazy circles on his ankle with her sneaker-clad toe and hear her talking about saucy poetry at the same time without spontaneously combusting. He can’t wrench his eyes away from hers when he says, “Saucy, huh?” His voice sounds like it’s coming from a tunnel.

“Mmm,” she hums, drawing out the sound in a way that makes Percy’s ears turn red. “Very saucy. Especially the poem we’ve been assigned for discussion tomorrow. It’s often considered his cheekiest work.”

“Cheeky,” Percy echoes, feeling his face turning the same colour as his ears.

“Venus and Adonis,” she says softly. “You know. _‘Even as the sun with purple-colour'd face had ta'en his last leave of the weeping morn, rose-cheek'd Adonis hied him to the chase; hunting he loved, but love he laugh'd to scorn; sick-thoughted Venus makes amain unto him, and like a bold-faced suitor 'gins to woo him.’_ ” Her eyes never leave his, too clear and too gray and too intense and everything is too everything right now. Percy can feel every shaky breath he takes rattle out of his chest and past his lips. He’s hyperaware that Annabeth has stopped drawing circles, and is instead drawing the leg of his pants higher and higher, making sure that he can feel the slide of each inch of her calf that’s pressed against his.

She pauses. They keep staring. People rush past outside the window but Percy doesn’t notice, can’t notice. Not when this feeling is blooming in his chest. Slowly, painfully slowly, Annabeth draws her bottom lip into her mouth again and-

“I’m glad we worked this out! I’ll be going now good luck with your lecture catch you next week okay see you.” Percy jumps up, everything coming out in one jumbled breath and he stumbles out of the Starbucks, bumping into at least three tables and keeping his eyes trained firmly anywhere but behind him. He rushes out the door and practically starts sprinting. He slows down once he passes the observatory and tries to take some deep breaths but it’s not doing anything to stop the pounding of his heart.

He only notices that he left his half-finished macchiato on their table when he’s safe inside his apartment, back pressed against the door. He can’t help feeling like he also left a few other things, like his rationality and a little bit of his dignity.

***

To Annabeth: ~~hey do u wanna meet up sometime this weekend~~

To Annabeth: ~~sorry for running away back there~~

To Annabeth: ~~i really like you~~

***

“Mr. Jackson!”

Percy jerks up and stares at his professor like a deer in the headlights. “Sir?”

“Having a good dream?” he asks bluntly. Percy cringes.

“I’m sorry sir, it won’t happen again.”

“It better not. Now, this particular family of Actiniaria is particularly recognized for its symbiotic relationship with Lybia boxing crabs…”

Percy sits ramrod straight for the rest of the tutorial and takes notes almost religiously. When he goes to reread them after class he finds it hard to believe that _Adamsia palliata_ is a sea anemone with perfect skin and a laugh so lovely it makes him feel like he swallowed the sun.

***

>>To Annabeth: should we meet up to go over tech before thursday [sent 12:17 PM]

>>From Annabeth: I can manage on my own. [sent 10:38 PM]

To Annabeth: ~~have i upset you~~

To Annabeth: ~~i cant get you out of my head~~

To Annabeth: ~~did u kno that a group of jellyfish is called a smack~~

***

Percy’s greeted with the now familiar smell of old paper and attic once he steps into the dingy little campus music store again. He’s been counting down the days to Thursday with a heavy feeling in chest, equally dread and anticipation. He’s also been waking up every night in the wee hours of the morning gasping for breath, covered in sweat, and his pajama pants uncomfortably tight but that’s not quite about the broadcast.

Luke’s voice is piping over the speakers again, this time talking with a caller about the football team’s performance at the exposition match against the Titans, a rival school. Luke, for some reason, is trying to defend the Titans’ abysmal match.

“Hey Grover,” Percy whispers as he steps into the booth. Grover gives him a cheery wave through a mouthful of enchilada. Percy shrugs off his jacket and drops it onto a chair in a heap before checking his watch again: 7:30. He figured he would get here early so he could figure out which buttons to push and which switches to flip. He stands a little behind Luke and follows his every movement, registering which control he’s pressing when and mentally filing it away for later that night. He’s so engrossed that he barely registers the door to the booth creaking open and being swiftly shut.

Luke wraps up his broadcast and Percy stands back to give him room to pull out his chair. He claps Percy on the shoulder and leaves with a wave to Grover and another towards the back of the booth. Percy wonders how he’s warm enough in just a letterman jacket.

He feels more than hears Annabeth walking up behind him; he freezes. All he can think of is the way her pupils were the size of the moon in that Starbucks, how he couldn’t get her laugh out of his head all week, how he’s been woken up every night with the image of her calling out his name in a broken voice branded into his brain.

“Hey Grover,” she greets, brushing past him and purposefully ignoring him. _Calculating_ is a word he would associate with her. _Intimidating. Icy_ even, sometimes. _Flirty_ wasn’t exactly something he thought would be a fitting description of Annabeth Chase when he first met her but. It’s definitely a fitting description if last Friday says anything about her. Percy knows enough about her to know that she doesn’t waste words or actions and if she wants something, she gets it.

Which makes Percy pause and try to muddle through his thoughts. He knows that’s something relevant, important even. The only problem is that he hasn’t been able to think straight for a week.

The announcement for the turn of the hour plays again and then a song he doesn’t recognize starts playing. It must be Annabeth’s choice again. It’s heavy and slow and there’s almost something sensual about it. He sits in his rickety plastic folding chair and goes over all the funny anecdotes he has prepared. His thick headphones block out everything except the sound of the broadcast and this is good, this is what he needs so he can focus. Distraction. He’s going to throw himself into work today.

“You’re listening to Heavy in Your Arms by Florence + the Machine on The Underclassmen Takeover,” Annabeth begins, and Percy’s mouth runs dry because apparently he’s not the only one with a “radio voice” but which deity has he either pissed off or pleased to make it that smooth and sultry?

“Welcome back on this chilly Thursday evening, where our producer, Grover, eats cheese enchiladas to his heart’s content, Percy stares off into space, and Annabeth actually does all the work,” she says, and Percy can hear her grin. He swats at her arm and he hears the muffled _thwack_ on the air. Annabeth glances at him from the side and suddenly the atmosphere doesn’t seem light and playful, if it ever was. Now it’s charged and heavy and the way Grover starts coughing is probably not an accident.

“Hey now,” Percy says. He barely recognizes his own voice. “I’ll have you know that I did some research before the show and now I’m probably a lot more qualified than you are.” He’s not sure whether he’s banter-ing or flirting. Probably both.

Annabeth doesn’t even look at him, just scoffs lightly and crosses her ankles. “Mhm? Is that so?”

“Absolutely,” he says. He leans his forearms on the table and rubs the back of his neck. “I know exactly which buttons to push.”

Annabeth gapes. Percy tastes victory and it’s still driving him crazy but sweeter than he thought it would be.

“Now let’s start off tonight’s playlist with Pyramid from the Two Door Cinema Club. You’re listening to The Underclassmen Takeover on Olympus Air.” He pushes the button to start the queue with a little more vigour than is warranted. Soft guitar fills his ears and he slips his headphones off and then stretches, his T-shirt pulling tight. He has practice after his last class on Thursdays and he loves how it breaks the monotony of his day but he doesn’t love the ache it left in his shoulders and his calves after his coach insisted on working his butterfly endurance _and_ his front crawl kick. A small whine pushes itself out of his chest the further back he stretches. Finally he feels some of the tension release; he lets out a low moan and collapses back in on himself. In his peripheral vision, he can see Annabeth shifting in her chair. He remembers that he has an essay on hydra reproduction due tomorrow that he’s barely written the introduction for and suddenly feels a deep need for caffeine.

“Hey, is there anywhere close by I can get coffee?” he asks, getting up from his seat and turning to face Grover, who’s nursing a cup of espresso that Percy can smell from here. It’s probably a safe bet that he keeps a stash somewhere in the vicinity.

“Yeah,” he says, “there’s an office behind that big shelf full of Dean Martin records, it has a coffee machine and stuff.”

Office, Percy thinks, is an overstatement. It’s barely got room for a desk, a few filing cabinets, and a stained coffee machine that’s sitting on one of those foldable little tables from IKEA. A sad stack of paper cones sits upside-down on the remaining space. Not even cups- cones. But Percy appreciates that they’re a lot more environmentally friendly- less material and no plastic that ends up in the ocean. He’s also really dreading the all-nighter he’s going to have to pull to piece together a decent analysis of budding and other means of asexual reproduction in sea jelly, so he figures that questionable coffee in a paper cone is probably going to be the best part of his entire night.

Percy downs three espressos like they’re shots and then washes it down with some water because it leaves a funky aftertaste in his mouth. His watch blinks up at him to tell him that he has ten minutes left. Frankly, he’s getting claustrophobic in this office. He’s turning around to leave when he sees Annabeth padding over.

 _Be cool, Percy,_ he tells himself. _Don’t be awkward and everything will be fine._

He drops his cup on the floor.

A blush rapidly spreading on his cheeks, he bends over to pick it up and prays to whatever deity may be that he’s struck dead on the spot. A pair of gray Converse come into view and slowly, with a fair amount of dread, he stands, trying to control the rush of blood to his face. A pair of skirt-that-screams-important-presentation-clad legs longer than the Montauk shoreline are connected to them and unconsciously, he trains his eyes in a straight bottom-up path until his eyes reach Annabeth’s and he’s standing at his full height. Her cheeks are tinted pink and suddenly Percy realizes that he just checked her out. All of her. Up close. _Shit._

Annabeth’s eyes are boring into his and it feels simultaneously invasive and vulnerable and he can see himself reflected in her pupils. She takes a step forward. He takes a step back. It’s like there’s a chord connecting them for all Percy tries to look away but can’t- between their eyes, between their chests, between their feet. Annabeth keeps walking forward, Percy keeps walking back, and suddenly the back of his legs hits the edge of the desk and the air thickens until everything feels syrupy and heavy and meaningful. Percy can hear the blood rushing past his ears. The sounds of the song playing on the tinny speakers sound like they’re coming from the long end of an echoing tunnel. Annabeth steps forward, forward, until she stands between his legs and Percy can feel every single inch of space where they are close enough to be pressed together but are not. He aches to touch her, a deep pain in his chest that’s worse than anything he’s ever felt before. Like looking at his mom’s fresh chocolate chip cookies right out of the oven and know he’s not allowed to have them yet. Not allowed to devour them, savour them. Feel them come apart in his hands.

Percy raises his hands like they’re moving through quicksand, the cup plonking onto the carpet, and brings them up, up, and then they stop an inch away from her hips. He finds that it’s impossible to swallow. His fingers are trembling from being this close to her. He feels more than sees Annabeth squeeze her hands into fists and breathe shakily through her mouth, because he can’t look anywhere but her eyes; he’s transfixed, he’s enthralled. It’s an orgy of unabashedly drinking in Annabeth’s equally intense expression directed at him, solely at him, and he can feel the heat radiating off of her like she’s a flame and he’s a moth because that’s a reasonable comparison of his higher thinking ability around her. She makes his brain short-circuit in a good way. She leans forward at the waist, her back arching, and Percy feels something shoot through him that goes straight to his crotch. His entire world shrinks to her lips, pink and bowed at the top and a little bit chapped. He feels the next breath she exhales wash over his cheeks.

“Hey Percy, what song did you have queued after Annabeth’s? I can’t find the list you gave me.” Grover’s voice rings out like a gunshot, drifting through the half-open door. He jumps up and Annabeth jumps back and there’s ringing in his ears and he’s pretty sure his face is permanently going to be firetruck red if the heat of his blush is any indication. He sidesteps her and jogs back into the booth. He tries to school his face into looking normal but he knows that’s not going to happen.

“Crazy Bird, by Wild Child,” he says, and he’s proud of how steady his voice is.

“What?” Grover asks, looking vaguely uncomfortable.

“The song. My song. The one after Annabeth’s. The one you didn’t have.”

“Oh, yeah. Sorry. Um. What was it again?”

“Crazy Bird. By Wild Child.”

“Right. Okay. Got it.”

“…”

“You sure were getting coffee for a long time.”

“What- no! No, no! I- I just. It just- I have. Uh.”

“It’s fine as long as. Um. You clean up. Um. After.”

“Oh my _god_ is this actually. Wow. It’s-uh. Nothing happened. It’s not like that.”

“Oh. _Oh._ Sorry. Well, um, now you know. Just, um, just in case.”

“Yeah. I- uh. I’ve gotta get back to- uh, to my spot. And you too. Right. Okay.”

Percy sits down and hides his face in his hands. He can’t believe that just happened. Maybe tonight was just a weird fever dream and he’ll wake up and things will be totally not like this.

He hears Annabeth come in and forget about butterflies. It feels like there’s a Green Day concert happening in his gut. She whispers something to Grover and he laughs a bit and there’s a questioning lilt to the end of his murmured response. Annabeth hums and then comes to sit next to him. Her cheeks are still pink and Percy thinks that’s a nice colour on her. He feels her sitting less than a foot away from him more acutely than the ache in his shoulders now.

“And that was River by Bishop Briggs, requested by Silena from Alpha Theta Epsilon. You’re listening to The Underclassmen Takeover on Olympus Air.” Annabeth pauses. She ploughs on with a question sent by anonymous text and then they have some witty back-and-forth about it and then they start ringing callers in. Percy struggles to construct sentences through all of it, because Annabeth set her hand on his knee with a featherlight touch as soon as they went back on air. With each new call they take, her hand slides up a few inches and by now, four crucial things are happening: 1) whoever’s on the phone right now is taking up way too much airtime and they have to cut them off soon, 2) Annabeth’s hand is now splayed across the upper part of his clenched thigh, 3) Grover can’t see anything that’s happening since everything that’s going on is going on under the table and 4) Percy’s so hard that it hurts and he’s afraid that if Annabeth moves her hand one more time she’s going to know. Almost as if she can hear his thoughts, she squeezes just a little bit and Percy manages to turn his squeak into a cough. The person speaking stalls.

“Sorry, but that’s about all the time we have for this topic, but if you still have any thoughts you want to share, hit us up on Twitter.” Percy tries to sound as apologetic as he can, then starts mentally reciting the species in the infraorder Cetacea, thinks about the way Gabe smells, tries anything to try to contain the situation in his pants. It works a little.

“Since it’s so cold out tonight, I figured I might play something that gets you feeling a little bit warmer. Here’s BITE by Troye Sivan.” Annabeth releases him hastily as she finishes speaking and Percy feels like a dog being led in circles. He can’t pretend that doesn’t hurt. She’s mean and then she’s begrudging and then she’s downright flirtatious and then she’s aloof and then she’s just as nervous about him as he is about her and then she’s back to being unapproachable again and Percy’s so confused. His brain is tired of shutting down and then rebooting and all he wants to do is kiss her and then take her out to dinner.

Percy listens to the words of the first stanza, slumped in his chair, and feels his face begin to burn. Did Annabeth know when she picked this song? He closes his eyes and turns his face upward. He stays sitting and doesn’t plan on getting up for the rest of the set. He figures that if he stays quiet then nothing else will happen tonight and then he can go home and take a nice long bath and then finish his essay and maybe turn in before the sun rises.

He doesn’t realize he’s dozed off until his headphones are being lifted away from his right ear. He blinks sleepily.

“We’re back on in a minute,” Annabeth says gently. It takes a few seconds for her words to register. And then he feels soft and dry lips dusting over the top of cheekbone before his headphones are carefully replaced. His heart squeezes; he feels like his ribs might burst from how his chest swells.

That tiny kiss, that nothing of a kiss- it occupies his mind for the rest of the hour and he wonders whether he imagined it. He thinks about what he wants: he wants to do this right with Annabeth. He wants to hold her hand, take her out to a movie, kiss her goodnight. He thinks about what she’s telling him: flip-flopping between everything and nothing. But he can’t stay away, not in thought, not in words, not in deed. Percy doesn’t know why he can’t just ask her out like he wants to. There’s a layer of doubts in his mind, maybe that’s it. Full of mixed signals and _maybe he’s not good enough for her_ s and every time she smiles at him he gets too damn tongue-tied. This is way more than he signed up for when he took this job.

And then with the end of the broadcast comes Annabeth’s final song choice. It’s Let’s Get It On by Marvin Gaye. If Percy thought he was confused before, he doesn’t even know what to do now.

“You’re good to go for tonight, thanks a lot,” Grover says. He starts his after-show clear-up again and Annabeth is out of the booth and then the front door before Percy has his headphones off. He stands up and stretches.

“Need any help?” Percy asks, hoping he says no. Almost like he can read his mind, Grover waves him off with a, “Don’t worry, go on home.” Percy gives him a grateful but tired smile and pulls on his jacket. The front door closes behind him with a muffled snap and he’s hit with air that must be close to 32 degrees. He huffs and tucks his chin in, trying to reduce the amount of bare skin exposed to the chill and wishing that he had a scarf.

“Percy.”

Her voice makes him stop. He doesn’t even question that she’d been waiting outside. He can’t look back. His body won’t turn around.

She stops beside him. He feel her eyes on him, on the side of his face. Her hand goes out to touch him and then stops halfway. He tells himself it doesn’t hurt.

“Percy, I-”

“What do you want from me?” he snaps, pivoting to face her. Annabeth’s face is a picture of surprise at his outburst. He’s just as startled. What is he doing? “I’m so tired of you toying with me, Annabeth, I’m so tired of it.” His voice sounds more defeated than he wants it to. He feels angry, he feels hurt, he feels strung-out, he feels like he wants to wake up next to her every day for the rest of his life.

She opens her mouth, her face more open and vulnerable than he’s ever seen it. He cuts her off before she can make a sound.

“I have no idea what you’re trying to do. If you want something, just fucking _say it_. Or take it, I don’t care-”

Annabeth grabs the collar of his jacket in her fists and yanks him down to her. Their mouths collide and it’s messy and there’s tongue and there’s teeth and Percy feels like he’s drunk. She moves her lips like she’s trying to devour him, and Percy is more than okay with being devoured. The force of his response almost knocks her off her feet; her back arches backwards to compensate. Percy groans low in his throat. His hands spring out of his pockets and he wraps them around her waist, tries to draw her into him. She’s pressed against his chest and her arms are stuck in between, still gripping the fabric of his collar; one of his hands is gripping the back of her jacket, the other cradling the back of her head. Nothing feels real except no, he can feel the cold air and he can hear the aborted, hungry breaths they’re taking when they get the chance. This isn’t the gentle first kiss he imagined with her. This is needy, this is raw, this is almost carnal.

She nips at his bottom lip none too gently and smooths it over with her tongue. It goes straight to his crotch. She starts pulling away, panting, but Percy chases her with his lips, eyes still tightly shut. She gives up on breathing and frees her arms from where they’re pinned between them. Her hands latch onto his hair instead, pulling, too hard. Percy groans again, and abruptly starts walking forward. Annabeth stumbles over her own feet until her back slams in the brick wall of the alley beside the music store. He swallows her gasp, stores it away somewhere safe so he never forgets it. Everything he gives, she takes. She matches him inch for inch, breath for breath, kiss for kiss.  

Annabeth breaks away again, her breathing so laboured that somewhere in his brain, in the part that’s not drowning in sensation and lust and instinct, he decides to let her. He directs his lips instead onto her cheek, places wet, open-mouthed kisses on her jaw, sucks on the skin behind her ear, trails kisses down her neck and latches onto her collarbone, the hollow of her throat, hard enough to bruise. Hoping it’ll bruise. Her breath hitches and it drives Percy _crazy_. Her jacket’s stopping him from going any lower but he stops thinking about it when she drags his mouth up to hers again. He feels every inch of her pressed against him. He’s a drowning man and she’s a lifeboat; he’s dying of thirst and she’s an oasis. He’s only known her for a week but in this moment, when the only sounds are cars in the distance and their own struggle to breathe, she’s his entire world.

Any poetic thoughts get promptly wiped out of his mind when she rolls her hips into his, where they’re cradled in between her legs. Instinctively, he thrusts up, and they both gasp out an aborted moan. Percy’s embarrassed by how hard he is already, but when he breaks away to breathe, he sees how wrecked Annabeth looks: hair disheveled, cheeks flushed, pupils blown. There’s a trail of red marks down the column of her neck, like a painting. Her head rests against the wall as her chest heaves, taking advantage of his rare pause to gulp in huge breaths. The night is still cold, and Percy doesn’t know how she’s surviving in that skirt.

He closes his eyes and rests his forehead against hers. Kisses her gently, softly. Achingly tenderly. Tries to pour his heart into it. His arm is braced on the wall next to her head, caging them in. Annabeth huffs and presses her lips to his more forcefully. Percy doesn’t fight the change.

And then stops when he feels her fingers slip under the waistband of his boxers and brush against him.

All of a sudden, everything is on fire. A strangled sound escapes from the back of his throat and Annabeth grins against his lips, wrapping her slender fingers around him. Percy’s knees start to shake. It kills him, it _kills_ him, but he pulls her hand out and steps back. They are _not_ going to have sex in this alley, pressed against a dirty brick wall. Annabeth deserves so much better. He wants to take his time with her, fuck her slowly until she’s trembling underneath him, and fall asleep holding her in his own sheets, in his own bed, in his own apartment. All his dating plans are screwed to hell and back anyway. They’re not doing this in the order he wanted, but hell if he’s not going to do this right nonetheless.

Annabeth’s giving him a hard look. He tries to explain but his breath is coming out in gasps and none of it is making sense. Eventually he just gives up and says, “My apartment’s only a few blocks away.” He hopes she takes the hint.

She does.

Percy thinks he deserves a medal for being able to drive with Annabeth sucking bruises onto his neck.

The elevator ride is torture. They crowd into it along with an old lady and her yappy dog who live on the floor above him. Annabeth keeps her hand in his back pocket and squeezes every once in a while. Percy struggles to make polite conversation with his neighbour. Eventually, the elevator dings and they clamber out. Percy fumbles with his keys and drops them a fair few times, cursing in between breathless kisses. As soon as the knob turns and they’re inside he shuts the door and pushes Annabeth back onto it. He didn’t think he would be so rough with her but from the way she’s grinding on him he figures that she doesn’t mind.

“Oh god, _Annabeth._ ” He whispers her name like it’s a prayer and she keens, rocking into him harder. Percy tries to slow down, be gentler, because if he doesn’t this is going to end very soon and he wants to make this good for her. He tries, he really does. But it’s hard to give gentle, loving kisses as a prelude to slowly and adoringly peeling off each layer of clothing between them and then laying her down on his bed and then just staring at her for a while when Annabeth is having none of it and starts fumbling with the buckle on his jeans. Before he can blink she’s pulled down his jeans and his boxers in one go to pool around his ankles and _damn_ if it doesn’t feel good to be free of those tight pants. She grips him in her hand and pumps him once, twice, and Percy sobs a little against her neck, bites down to stop himself from doing anything louder.

“Touch me,” Annabeth breathes, her voice imperious. Percy wants this to be slow and sweet but with the way she’s squeezing her hand he’s too far gone to try. He shoves his hand up under her skirt and doesn’t even take off her panties, just pulls them to the side. Her hands brace themselves palms flat against the door. When he rubs her clit between his forefinger and thumb her knees buckle and it’s just his arm around her waist that keeps her standing. When he slips a finger inside her she whines so loudly he’s afraid his neighbours will send him noise complaints. When he starts thrusting and then adds a second finger she chokes out his name in a way that sends a shiver down his spine and straight to his dick.

“Now,” she pants, her irises almost entirely swallowed by black. “Right now, don’t make me wait any longer.”

Percy pauses, fingers still inside her. “Here? Against the door?”

“Yes, Percy, oh my god what are you waiting for?”

He leans his forehead against hers and presses a kiss to her cheek. “We’ll have to go back to my room to get condoms-”

“It’s fine, I have an IUD, Percy _please._ ” Annabeth sounds more impatient than pleading, but the way her voice makes that inflection on _please_ is enough to make Percy lose the last of his self-control. He brushes the hair off her sweaty forehead with trembling fingers and Annabeth closes her eyes at the touch.

“Are you sure?” he murmurs. “Is this what you want?”

“ _Yes. For fuck’s sake, just-_ ”

The rest of her sentence gets caught in her throat when in one swift movement, Percy grabs her ass, lifts her up, and pushes inside her. She wraps her legs around his waist, skirt rucked up, and moans, high and loud. Percy nearly collapses from so much feeling. She’s hot, so hot, and wet, and pulsing, and Percy nearly comes right then. He shudders and breathes out shakily, his legs trembling from the effort to stay still. When she squeezes her thighs to tell him to start, Percy pulls out almost all the way, slowly, and pushes back in even slower. His arms already feel the strain. Annabeth growls- honest to goodness growls- and pulls him by the hair into a messy kiss.

“More,” she breathes. “Faster.” And Percy can’t refuse her anything, not really. He starts thrusting, powerfully, relentlessly. The door rattles in its frame every time and anyone in the hallway would know what they’re doing especially with the sounds coming out of Annabeth’s mouth, filthy and fucked-out. Percy breathes her name against her lips, swallows every gasp she lets out. They’re a mess, this isn’t how he wanted their first time to be: fucking against the front door of his apartment. They haven’t even taken off their shoes. Every time he rams back into her he can feel the cloth of her panties brushing against him where they’ve been shoved aside, not even removed.

“Percy,” she chokes out, her thighs trembling around him. “Percy, I’m-”

“I know,” he grunts. “Me too.”

His rhythm is erratic. He doesn’t know how long he can keep up this pace. His thighs are burning and his cock is throbbing and his shirt is gross with sweat. After a particularly vicious thrust Annabeth lets out a long, keening note and then he feels her clench around him and shudder against him and the feeling of her coming around him is too much and then he’s coming harder than he ever has in his life, sobbing out Annabeth’s name. When he comes down from his high he presses a tired kiss to her forehead. It’s too tender for the way they did what they just did. After another heartbeat he pulls out, sets her down on shaking legs, and looks, dumbfounded, at the streaks of semen running down Annabeth’s legs. He hopes it won’t stain her black skirt, it looks formal and expensive.

“Is there anywhere I can clean up?” Annabeth asks him, her voice a little bit wrecked and it pulls at Percy’s heart.

“Yeah,” he says, taking her by the hand and intertwining their fingers. He kisses her knuckles. “There’s a bathroom right by my bedroom, let’s go.”

Annabeth tugs her hand out of his. “It’s fine, I can manage on my own.” It’s the same thing she texted him that left him so broken-hearted earlier in the week. Percy’s not having it. If he doesn’t get to worship her during, he’s going to worship her after. He has to if he doesn’t want to feel like a sleaze.

“Annabeth,” he says softly. “Please. Let me do this for you.” She looks at him and sees how earnest he’s being and then acquiesces, joining their hands together again. She takes off her skirt when she sits down on the edge of the tub but leaves her panties on. Percy’s mouth goes dry when he sees the black lace and cotton, making the skin of her thighs look like porcelain. He wets a washcloth with warm water and runs them gently over the insides of her legs. His touch is reverent, even though he knows she won’t break. He just can’t believe that she’s here, in his apartment, and _his._ He sets it down on the toilet and looks up at her from between her knees and Annabeth’s eyes are dark and flashing again.

He grins up at her wolfishly from the floor and bends down to kiss her ankle. She sucks in a breath. He layers wet, open-mouthed kisses up to the curve of her calf. The inside of her knee. By the time his trail of kisses reaches her upper thigh she’s panting and gripping his hair again. He smiles against the smooth skin and starts biting, licking, sucking at the innermost juncture between her hip and thigh, only removes his mouth to switch to the other side and then again to slide her underwear past her knees and then onto the floor. By the time he finally presses a kiss right in between her legs Annabeth looks and sounds thoroughly and utterly debauched. She fists his hair harder and pulls him closer. He glances up at her beneath his lashes and realizes that he is totally ruined for anyone but her.

 

Percy wakes to soft sunlight filtering through his blinds. He blinks the sleep out of his eyes and starts to yawn. It dies in his throat when he looks down.

Annabeth is sleeping with her head on his chest, her hand curled with his on his ribs. His other arm is wrapped around her bare waist and he can feel each deep, slow breath she takes, her breasts pushed against his side. Her hair is splayed over her shoulders and looks golden next to his blue sheets. Her face in sleep is breathtaking. The only sounds are birds outside the window and their gentle, sleepy breathing. Percy wants to freeze time and stay in this moment forever, with her leg thrown over his and feeling each little (adorable) puff of breath she releases on his collarbone. His heart feels achy and tender; something swells up inside him until he feels the corners of his eyes prickle. He thinks about feeling this kind of bliss when he wakes up every day for the rest of his life and yeah, he’s happy. Really happy.

He’s also still a little tired, but he expected that after swim practice. And that first time against his door. And then going down on Annabeth in his bathroom. And then fucking her against the cool ceramic of the shower. And then fingering her against his bedroom wall until she cried out his name. And then fucking her again in his bed. Oops.

Annabeth starts stirring. He lets his lips linger on her forehead in a feather-soft kiss before she hums as she stretches against him and wow Percy’s definitely awake now. He laughs as she scowls at the sunlight coming through his blinds.

“Morning,” he hums, pressing a kiss to her cheek. Annabeth stiffens and her eyes snap open, all drowsiness gone.

“Morning,” she says, business-as-usual. And then her eyes widen. “Shit. _Shit,_ ” she hisses. “What time is it?”

Percy glances over her head at his alarm clock. “7:33.”

“Shit. Okay, no time to shower, clothes, go.” Annabeth jumps out of bed and starts scanning the room for her clothes. She has to track them all the way out the door and into the bathroom. Percy hears the tap running. He sits up and rubs a weary hand over his face. He knew the tranquility couldn’t last, but no one can blame him for wanting it to. _One day,_ he thinks. It buoys his spirits considerably. He slides out of bed with a lot more effort than is warranted and pulls on a pair of boxers.

He walks into the kitchen at the same time that Annabeth bursts out of the bathroom, her clothes immaculate and not a hair out of place. She hurries to the door, calls a _see you later_ and slips out the door before Percy can even offer to cook her breakfast. He tries not to panic. She probably has an 8 AM class and needs to run. That makes sense.

He tries not to dwell on the fact that she didn’t even look at him once from the moment she woke up.

He boils the kettle and makes himself a mug of instant coffee. It doesn’t hide the lingering smell of sex in his apartment. Percy suddenly remembers his neglected paper on asexual reproduction in hydras and groans. He needs more coffee.

***

>>To Annabeth: can we meet up sometime this weekend? the aquarium has a new giant sea turtle exhibit [sent 8:47 AM]

>>From Annabeth: What time do your classes finish today? [sent 10:45 AM]

>>To Annabeth: 4.30 [sent 10:46 AM]

>>From Annabeth: I’ll meet you at your apartment at 5, does that work? [sent 10:49 AM]

>>To Annabeth: the aquarium is closed by then and id rly like to take u out [sent 12:31 PM]

>>From Annabeth: I have other plans, some of which include you taking me, and none of which include clothes. [sent 2:17 PM]

>>To Annabeth: annabeth i am IN CLASS [sent 2:18 PM]

>>From Annabeth: Is that a yes? [sent 2:25 PM]

>>To Annabeth: yesyesyes i rly want to see u [sent 2:25 PM]

To Annabeth: ~~why do i feel like you just turned me down if you said you wanted to come to my place~~


	2. Chapter 2

Percy drives home as fast as he can in his dinky little car without breaking any laws after his final lecture. He lets himself in to his apartment and he’s immediately struck with the musky smell of sex, still there after a whole day. To be fair, it hasn’t been given the chance to diffuse out. Percy sets to work digging out every scented candle he owns, which is a lot more than he expected, lights them all, and hopes for the best. Then he remembers that he has some Febreeze tucked under the bathroom sink and he promptly sprays that everywhere in the house, even in places like the hall closet and under the table. He pauses and sniffs. And then gags. 

He opens the windows and hopes that the cold won’t get in too fast. 

He starts to change out of his clothes into something nicer and then he remembers what Annabeth said. She’s just coming over to fool around, not for a date. Percy’s had time to think about it today and yeah, he’d still really like to take her out on a proper date but really, he just wants to spend time with her. He likes Annabeth even without the soft glow of aquarium lights and without tasting movie popcorn on her mouth and without holding her hand on a long walk in Central Park, even though those things would be nice. He likes Annabeth for her smile and her laugh and her double-major and her sense of humour and her brain-power and her hairlipslegseyes and the way she sighs his name when he kisses her breast, right over her heart, and herherherher he likes everything about her. Even the things he doesn’t like about her, he likes about her. 

He pulls his sweater back over his head and goes to brush his teeth instead.   
Percy’s pacing nervously in his living room when the phone rings and he checks the time: 5:02 PM. His caller ID proudly announces that Annabeth Chase is calling. Stupid caller ID. Doesn’t it know that that name sends hordes of killer bees into Percy’s stomach? 

“Hey,” he says, and his voice is soft and fond. 

“Hey,” Annabeth replies. He can hear the grin in her voice. “I don’t know how to get into your building.”

“Shit, sorry,” he says quickly, and Annabeth laughs. His toes curl in his socks. “The code is 3474Z, I’m apartment 610.” 

He hears the click of those stupidly metallic buttons and then the buzzing sound that goes off every time the door is unlocked. “Be ready when I get upstairs, yeah?” Annabeth says. 

“Ready,” he asks, feeling cheeky. “What exactly does that mean?”

Annabeth sounds the most amused he’s ever heard her. “Hard, mostly.” 

Percy laughs. 

“Although some mood lighting and nice music wouldn’t be unappreciated.” 

“No promises there,” he teases, and he can almost hear Annabeth rolling her eyes. 

“Yeah, yeah. Now let me in.” A sharp knock knock sounds at his door and Percy’s heart is nearly bursting out of his chest. How can one body contain this much feeling? He pulls out the deadbolt as slowly as he can and then starts turning the lock even slower. Soon enough, Annabeth starts shouting from the other side of the door. “I know what you’re doing, Percy Jackson, and you can knock it off right now.” 

Percy snorts and swings the door open. “Welcome to Chez Jackson…”

The words die out on his lips. Annabeth doesn’t look any different from yesterday. Her hair is loose and she’s wearing jeans and a sweater. It’s nothing special. But today, today she’s directed that coy smile at him, and Christ she’s beautiful. She steps inside and draws him along behind her by the strings of his hoodie while stepping out of her shoes and it’s all he can to do close the door and remember to lock it. She pauses once she gets into the main space and Percy wraps his arms around her waist from behind, presses a kiss to her neck. Annabeth starts laughing. 

“Oh my god, you actually lit candles.” She cranes her neck around to smile at him and that’s all the invitation Percy needs to press his lips to hers, smiling into it. She twists in his arms and weaves her hands into his hair, her fingers trailing over his scalp in lazy patterns and making him tingle all over. He pulls his arms around her waist tighter; he wants to see if he can just pull her into him. Their long, slow kiss turns into maddening short pecks until Annabeth is almost doubling over with laughter. Percy likes how giggly she is today. 

“Percy, stop, kiss me properly,” she gasps out between giggles. Percy takes advantage of her breathlessness by grabbing her ass with both hands and squeezing. She squeaks, which turns into a quiet sigh when he starts feathering butterfly kisses over her neck and behind her ear. It’s a landscape of red and purple marks, and just seeing those, he’s already half-hard. Percy would say that he’s loyal to a fault, but he’s finding that intense possessiveness also comes with the territory. He likes to see the marks that he made on her, likes knowing that she let him make these marks on her. 

“You’re feeling bossy today,” he says in between kisses, and Annabeth lolls her head to the side for better access. 

“I’m always feeling bossy,” she moans. He didn’t expect Annabeth to be quite so vocal, but he was mostly basing that on her impressive capacity for staying icily silent. Percy trails his kisses lower and lower until he’s stopped by the woolly neckline of her sweater. 

“I want that off,” Annabeth says firmly. “And yours.” 

Percy kisses her again, mumbling, “At least you’re not in denial about the bossy thing,” against her lips before he sucks her bottom lip into his mouth. He kisses her deeply, drinks her in, tastes his time to taste her and learn the ridges and bumps and soft skin of her mouth. She slaps his ass to tell him to hurry up and he huffs a laugh against her mouth. He presses one more kiss at the corner of her mouth then pulls back. Annabeth’s blushing. He can’t help but grin down at her cheekily. She didn’t blush once while he was fucking her with his tongue yesterday but today she’s bright pink when he kisses her like he means it. 

He slides his fingers under the hem of her sweater and pulls it over her head with her help. He takes a minute to look at her, all curves and stretches of tan skin and holy mackerel her bra makes his pants tight. It’s pale pink and trimmed with white lace, with a tiny bow right between her breasts, and surely she can’t know that it’s the same shade as her blush. Annabeth looks flustered and uncomfortable with his undivided attention on her, his gaze alternating between the skin that’s just been bared to him and her face, already flushed and framed prettily by her princess curls. 

“Well?” she says sharply, but Percy knows it’s just to cover up her vulnerability. “Don’t just stand there.” 

He kisses her in an apology, and then his hoodie is gone, thrown haphazardly on the floor somewhere. Annabeth pulls him back into a kiss, takes control and sets the pace of it. Percy lets her. Her kisses are always more frantic, more driven; there’s an end-goal in sight with each swipe of her tongue, and Percy would have to be blind not to see it. He doesn’t mind- it gives him more of an excuse to kiss her like she’s precious, to kiss her just to kiss her, for the sake of balance. 

Her hands smooth over his bare shoulders and he feels Annabeth moan with approval deep in her throat. He smiles, and then has to stop because it’s getting in the way of this fantastic make-out session and that’s not okay. She wraps her hands around his biceps, trails her palms over his back, traces the ridges of his chest and his abs with a single finger. The tips of her fingers brush along the V of his hips and Percy groans a little. The pressure in his jeans is getting unbearable and he seriously regrets not at least changing into sweats. His hands stop their slow caress of the dip of her waist and smooth up to cup her breasts. Annabeth tips her head back at the touch. Percy chases after her lips and their height difference is enough that he can keep kissing her even at this angle. 

He squeezes, just lightly, but Annabeth gasps in an obscene way that makes his dick throb. 

“I,” she pants into his mouth, “I want you to take off my bra. And then I want you to do that again.” She clutches desperately at his shoulders to keep herself upright. Her back arches so she can press herself against him and shove her chest more fully into his hands. Percy brushes his thumbs over the petal soft skin above where the cup ends and feels goosebumps raise in their wake. 

“You know,” he mumbles between kisses. “I kinda like being bossed around by you.”

Annabeth moans, brokenly, unabashedly. “God, Percy, you can’t just say things like that.” 

“Why?” he asks, nipping at her bottom lip. “It’s the truth.” He squeezes, not as lightly this time, and he feels Annabeth’s legs quiver a little against his. “And besides,” he whispers, and wow his voice has totally dropped an octave. He feels proud of the way it makes Annabeth collapse against his bare chest. “If you can still talk, I’m clearly not doing a good enough job.” 

His hands leave her chest and Annabeth whimpers a little. He swallows it, vows never to forget it. He fumbles around with the back of the band. It’s hard to unclasp her bra, but when he feels her giggle into his mouth it sort of makes up for it. He slips the straps down her arms and then it falls to the floor between them.   
Today is different, Percy thinks. They’re not rushing towards anything; well, at least he isn’t. He’s taking the time to learn the dips and the swells of Annabeth’s body, to find out what he can do with his tongue to make her moan and what he can do with his fingers to make her shiver. It’s different in the daylight. He reminds himself to pause just to look, to rove over her with his eyes and take it all in, and know that he’s allowed to have it. In the waning rays of the autumn sun, standing half-naked in the middle of his living room and wrapped up in each other, he feels younger and older and more alive than he ever has before. The closest he’s ever felt to this is the moment between the rush of air and screaming crowds as he dives into the water from the starting block and the moment he makes his first stroke, where the whole world is just him and the water and the false breath of peace that comes with it. 

Percy breaks away and steps back, holding onto her hands. He loses the ability to breathe. His eyes trace over the delicate swelling of her breasts, the smooth, unblemished skin above. Her dark pink areolas, clashing with the red flush everywhere else. Silhouetted against the orange rays of the setting sun, she looks like some kind of goddess. He tells her as much. She blushes again. 

Percy’s enjoying being able to make her as flustered as she made him for that godawful week. 

“Percy,” she says like she’s scolding, and okay, yeah, he totally does find that hot. “Don’t you have a job to do?” 

“What,” he asks, “this?” He drops her hands and replaces his over her chest. He’ll never get tired of this feeling, never get tired of the way she’s looking at him.

Annabeth sucks in a breath at the touch of skin on skin. Percy kisses her so he can feel the way breath explodes past her lips when he does as she asks. He rolls her hardened nipples between his fingers, flicks them a little, and Annabeth gives up on anything except kissing Percy and gripping his shoulders for dear life. Gently, he detaches his mouth from hers and continues his trail of kisses down past her collarbones, and here he’s not so gentle. Annabeth grabs rough handfuls of his hair and Percy thinks to himself- as well as he can with all of the blood in his body in his groin- that she has a thing for pulling his hair and god that’s hot. He sucks her nipple into his mouth and nips at it a little. He has to fight to contain his smile when she moans, high and needy. 

He likes being able to explore her body. Yesterday was hurryhurryhurry fuckfuckfuck and that was good (really good) but that’ll never replace the soft, slow touches that he wants to give her. And the cuddling. That’s Percy’s favourite part of sex. 

He switches sides, and Annabeth’s knees buckle a little. He likes having this much control over her. 

“All of these clothes,” she stutters. “Need to be off. Right now.” 

“Yes ma’am,” he mutters, and kneels so he can peel her out of her jeans and then kiss every inch of skin that gets exposed. And then he groans out loud when her jeans are at her knees. 

“Like them?” Annabeth asks slyly. 

Percy leans his forehead on her thigh. “Are you trying to kill me?” His voice is muffled against her skin, higher by at least an octave. Her panties match her bra, baby pink and white lace, complete with a little bow at the front and of course Annabeth would be the type to be able to kick his ass but also wear underwear with bows on it. 

She pulls her pants the rest of the way off and then kicks them somewhere behind her. He stares up at her, a little overwhelmed, and she smirks back down at him, wearing just her blush pink underwear and her hair falling in curtains around her face. From this angle her legs look miles long. “Less talking, more stripping.”  
Percy is more than happy to comply. Anything to get out of this denim death-trap. 

Once his pants have gone the same way as the rest of their clothes, he reaches out to hold onto her hips, but she loops her pinky and her thumb in between his wrists. Pinned, even if it barely even counts as being pinned, he doesn’t move a muscle. With her free had, she pulls down his boxers and then shimmies out of her own underwear. She pokes her index finger right into his sternum and walks him backwards. He steps out of his boxers, in a pile on the floor. She pushes him until the backs of his knees hit the couch and he loses his balance. An oof gets knocked out of him when he falls onto the cushions. Annabeth doesn’t waste any time, just clambers onto his lap, thighs parted on either side, and tips his head up by the chin to look at her. Percy leans up to kiss her. 

“You said you liked me being bossy?” She tosses her hair over her shoulder. Percy gulps. The cool evening air getting in through the open window feels like heaven against his burning skin. In the distance, cars are honking. “Then let me.”

And with that she raises herself onto her knees and just as quickly sinks down onto him. Percy moans, low in his throat. He likes this better, he thinks, because he’s not so drunk off lust like last night that all he can feel is her wet heat around every inch of him, even if, admittedly, that’s pretty fantastic. He feels her thighs, already trembling, brushing against his and he feels her hands braced on his shoulders and he feels his heartbeat in his dick and he feels her hair sweeping across his chest and he feels his heart swelling with every breath she takes to steady herself. She raises herself again and pulls almost all the way off; the loss of touch makes Percy whine. Then she drops back onto him and oh man he’s not going to last very long if she keeps clenching around him like that. 

“Annabeth, oh, fuck…” he whispers into the stillness of his apartment. His hands try to find purchase on her hips but she slaps them away. 

“You can only touch if I say so,” she puffs through a moan. Her voice makes his hips buck up into her and a gasp gets forced out of her. She clenches around him so hard that he chokes on his own breath trying to hold on. “And you’re not going to do that again. I’m in charge, remember?” 

Percy nods meekly. It’s a struggle to try to find something to grab onto to keep him grounded; the couch cushions don’t offer him anything to grip. His brow is sweating with the effort it’s taking to stay still and let Annabeth have her way with him, to not thrust up into her like he wants to. Percy looks up at her, her face scrunched in an insanely sexy combination of concentration and pleasure as she rides him. He doesn’t know how long they go on for until Annabeth says loudly, clearly, “More.”

It’s all the invitation he needs to scramble to find her clit and start pinching, rolling, flicking. He grinds down the heel of his hand. Annabeth throws her head back and cries out a string of curses; she keeps riding him, her thighs quivering. Percy’s trying to hold back for as long as he can. He wants her to come first. She’s so lost in her movements that Percy figures he’s allowed to touch some more and his free hand starts working at her breasts. Annabeth chokes on a sob and then she’s rolling her hips down on his, riding out her orgasm. Percy weeps a little when he finally lets himself release inside her and pulls her down to kiss her.   
Their shaky breaths fill the otherwise silent room. Annabeth’s slumped against him, her hands winding listlessly through his hair. Percy places soft kisses along her shoulder, trying to control his still racing heart. He cradles her face in his hands, achingly affectionate, and presses a kiss to her forehead. 

And then Annabeth sighs, and his heart sinks. That wasn’t a happy sigh. 

“Annabeth?” he asks. She looks at him, and she looks resigned. 

“We need to talk about this,” she says, like her words aren’t stabbing his heart with tiny knives. 

“Can we, uh, talk after we’ve cleaned up a little?” he asks, because they’re covered in sweat and Annabeth’s still sitting on his dick and everything’s starting to feel a bit sticky. He’s also trying to delay whatever conversation she’s planning on having but no one has to know that. 

“Yeah,” she says, then slides off and winces at the gluey feeling. Percy scrunches up his face in sympathy; that probably doesn’t feel great. “I’ll be back in a second.” She collects her clothes in an armful and then parades her bare ass to the bathroom. 

Percy grips a handful of hair to try to get himself to focus. He gets up and pads to the hall cupboard. He chooses a small green towel because it reminds him of the colour of the reeds on the Long Island shoreline. The warm water from the kitchen tap that he soaks it in feels nice on his skin. He wipes himself off, tosses the towel into the laundry hamper in his bedroom, pulls on a fresh pair of boxers and a pair of sweatpants, and throws all his clothes that were strewn all over the floor into his room and shuts the door. He can hear Annabeth’s voice in the bathroom, over the sound of the running sink. He wonders what she’s saying to herself. He leans out the window and breathes in the crisp autumn air. It makes a tiny click when it’s latched shut. 

“Percy.”

He turns to face her. She’s fully dressed. It hurts more than it should. Like she’s only here for the sex. Which, Percy reminds himself, is perfectly plausible. They never defined what they’re doing, and mutual sexual attraction doesn’t mean the same thing as mutual romantic attraction. He never even told her he liked her. Everything sort of…happened, before he could say anything. 

He motions to the dining table because he doesn’t think he can sit on the couch without blushing or getting hard. He’s not sure which is worse. Percy takes his usual chair facing the kitchen and Annabeth sits to his left. It feels domestic, somehow. Annabeth places her hands on the table beseechingly, or maybe Percy’s just reading into it too much. 

“There’s…no easy way to say this,” she starts, and Percy clenches his fist under the table. Yeah, okay, he was right. It still feels like shit, though. 

“Look.” Percy says bluntly. He’s just going to rip off the Band-Aid. “I get it if it’s a one-time thing. I can never mention it again and delete you off my phone if that’s what you…really…want…” His sentence trails off as he sees Annabeth look at him like she has no idea what he’s saying. “That’s…not what you were going to say?”

“No,” she says slowly. “What I was actually going to say was, ‘The sex is fantastic, let’s set some ground rules and continue this indefinitely,’ but it sounds like you’re not-”

“No, no!” The fear that Annabeth wants to cut ties evaporates and Percy’s chest feels lighter than it ever has. It’s not what he initially wanted but it’s not like it’s something he doesn’t want at least a little bit. Also he really doesn’t want this to have been the last time he has sex with Annabeth. “I…if I’m gonna be honest, I just wanna spend as much time with you as I can.”

Annabeth looks gratified. “Okay.” She pulls her phone out of her back pocket. A new note gets opened and she taps out a title to show him: Ground Rules. 

“Um, rule number one is definitely consent,” she says, typing. Percy nods vigorously. Even though it goes without saying that they’ll ask for consent, it doesn’t hurt to have it in writing. 

“Rule number two is that I get to make you pancakes when you stay the night,” he adds. 

Annabeth frowns at him. “Percy, be serious. We need to have all the important ones first.”

“I am being serious,” he says, grinning. “Pancakes are important.” Annabeth glares at him and he puts his hands up. “Okay, okay.”

“Rule number two…” Annabeth taps her chin with a finger. “We don’t talk about this at work. Or other public places. This stays secret.” 

Percy thinks about not being able to tell everyone that Annabeth is his, and that he’s hers. “So what do I call you if someone asks?”

“Your friend, obviously. It’s the safest option.” 

“Right.” His mouth tastes bitter, but he can’t stay away from her, he knows that already. And then a worrying thought occurs to him. “Number three. This is exclusive.” 

Annabeth nods, to his relief. “I wasn’t really planning on sleeping with anyone else. I mean, I wasn’t really planning on sleeping with anyone, but…”

Percy doesn’t know whether to be flattered or offended. His fingers tap out a rhythm on his leg. He remembers that he’s not wearing a shirt and suddenly this becomes a relevant detail to his mind, a bit scattered with the turn of events. He wishes he’d put one on, and now he can’t remember why he didn’t. 

“And obviously, no strings attached. If we don’t want to sleep over afterwards we don’t have to, we don’t have to go out, and no pressure to have any feelings.” She pauses and then deletes part of what she just wrote. “Actually, I’m going to amend that. No feelings, because I’m not really looking for a relationship and it’s just going to complicate things.” 

This is the point where it occurs to Percy that he can’t keep pretending that there’s still a chance that Annabeth wants to be with him. This is also the point where he realizes that he’s so far gone for her that he’ll do anything just to get to know her better and hold onto her. He’ll stomp all over his own heart willingly if it means he gets to keep kissing her. She’s like heroin; once you have a taste for it, you can never stop. 

This is also the point where he recognizes that he’s already broken the amended rule number four. He might as well have dropped it from the St. Louis Arch for the shape that it’s in. 

“And I think that’s the basics,” Annabeth says, shoving her phone back into her pocket, oblivious to everything that’s just gone on in Percy’s mind. She makes to get up but Percy grabs her hand. She turns her head to look at him. 

“Are you leaving?” he asks. 

She nods. “I have a paper due on Tuesday.”

Percy stands slowly and grabs her hips, pulls her a little closer. There’s a quiet, irrational terror lodged in his chest that if he lets her go right now, he’ll never get her back. Which is stupid, Percy tries to tell himself, because they literally just agreed that they’d be doing this again. Maybe this is coming from the part of him that’s just thrown out all his thoughts of introducing Annabeth to his mom. 

“It’s Friday night,” he growls, his lips brushing the shell of her ear. Annabeth shivers. “And you’re telling me.” He traces the strip of skin right above the waistband of her jeans, under her sweater. “That your plans.” He pulls her even closer, lines up their hips. “Are writing a paper that’s not even due on Monday?” He punctuates it with a nip on her earlobe. Annabeth grabs his forearms, tries to take a breath but it hitches halfway. 

“That- that was the plan,” she says breathlessly. 

“Are you really sure about that?” he whispers, before gluing his mouth to her pulse point. Annabeth tilts her head to the side to give him better access. He sucks on it sharply and she inhales just as harshly. It’s not until she moans, softly, that he relents. He pulls back and smooths over the blooming bruise with his tongue. And then smiles as innocently as he can. 

“God, Percy, fuck, fuck. This is a really important paper,” she swears as she drags him by the hand into his bedroom. Percy can’t get the dopey grin off his face. Percy: 1, college: 0. 

She makes short work of her clothes, and then his. They settle on the bed, with white sheets today because the ones from last night are in the wash. Percy positions himself at her entrance and props himself up on his forearms so he doesn’t squish her. Her heels dig into the small of his back, her wrists are pinned above her head by one of his hands. He wonders, idly, if it’s possible to be addicted to sex. Annabeth probably knows the answer to that question. He’ll have to ask her at some point. 

A while later, long enough that the sky is dark and traffic is as quiet as it gets in New York, Percy pulls Annabeth back into his chest and fights to not brush away the hair at the back of her neck and kiss her there like he wants. That’s probably breaking a rule about being too affectionate. She sighs contentedly and lets him wrap an arm around her waist and tangle their legs together. “I thought we said we didn’t have to sleep over,” she says, although there’s nothing but mellow post-orgasm bliss in her voice. 

“I’m a cuddler, so sue me,” Percy says into her hair. She breathes in a way that sounds like she’s laughing. “You don’t have to stay if you don’t want to,” he says softer this time, more serious. “But if you don’t have any plans tomorrow morning, I make killer pancakes.” 

“You did say they were important,” Annabeth says, sleepily this time. “And I’m really tired.”

“Sorry,” he laughs. “I think that’s my fault.” She kicks his ankle and settles further back into him. The air is soft and sleepy; his sheets are warm and Annabeth is warmer. He tells himself that kissing her bare shoulder that’s peeking out from under the covers probably doesn’t fall under the category of “platonic cuddling”. 

“Goodnight,” he whispers. 

“Goodnight, Percy.”

***

>>From Annabeth: Do you know how hard it is to wash semen out of wool sweaters? [sent 12:24 PM]

  
>>To Annabeth: hey i didnt ask u to give me a blowjob while u were tying ur shoes [sent 12:25 PM]

  
>>To Annabeth: even if it was great [sent 12:25 PM]

  
>>From Annabeth: You’re welcome, loser ;) [sent 12:27 PM]

  
>>From Annabeth: Can you text me when you find my bra? [sent 12:27 PM]

  
>>To Annabeth: sure thing [sent 12:28 PM]

  
>>To Annabeth: it was under my bed how tf did u get it there [sent 1:14 PM]

  
>>From Annabeth: I was in a hurry, okay [sent 1:14 PM]

  
***

  
Like an idiot, Percy doesn’t think about what their new arrangement means for their job past “don’t mention it” until he gets to the studio at 7:50. As soon as he reaches the front door, his eyes are immediately drawn to the alleyway beside it and he flushes. Percy hopes he can pass it off as the cold. 

It only gets worse once he steps inside. For the past two weeks, despite the onslaught of awkward that usually gets unleashed, the musty smell of old paper and plastic calmed him down. But now, all he can think about is how he’ll be crammed into a tiny plastic chair next to Annabeth for the next hour while Grover feels awkward about how awkward Percy feels trying to pretend that he still barely knows Annabeth and oh fuck did Grover see them last week he probably did they were going at it right outside the front door this is a disaster already maybe he should just call in sick and let Annabeth take over for tonight-

“Hey Grover,” he says quietly, pulling off his jacket and setting it on a spare chair. 

Grover waves from behind the soundboard like normal. Luke is wearing his letterman jacket again, a big Kappa in gold sown over the heart. He’s telling a good-natured story about his kid sister, who got followed around by cows all summer. Just like that, Percy feels like everything’s going to be fine. But good things never last. 

Annabeth walks in the front door and Percy’s heartrate skyrockets again. Trying to act like they haven’t had mind-blowing casual sex multiple days in the last week suddenly seems as unattainable a goal as trying to lie to his mom. Nothing’s ever gone smoothly for him before, why expect his good luck to start now? 

Actually, wait. Fuckety fuck fuck. He’s going to have to lie to his mom about this too. 

She opens the door to the booth as quietly as she can and sets her coat on top of Percy’s. He only realizes that he’s been staring when he accidentally catches her eye. They both look away too quickly and Grover looks between them, bemused. Annabeth recovers first, sets her face uncannily into the determined and intimidating expression that she had before and fishes her hardback copy of An Anthology of the Neoclassical Works of William Shakespeare from her bag. The last time he saw that book was in that Starbucks two Fridays ago, the closest thing he’s ever going to get to a date with Annabeth Chase. 

Not that he’s complaining about the sex. It’s great. More than great. Maybe it’s getting a little out of control but that’s fine. Totally fine. Percy can handle it. They’re adults, they can be responsible. 

Percy’s weekend consisted of trying to get the smell of sex out of his apartment while also not letting it get into the hallway, doing his laundry, swimming more laps that he kept track of, benching more than he probably should have, and catching up on all the papers and reading that he’d neglected during the week. He was starting to remind himself more and more of his mother: staying up late at night with a mug of coffee, squinting at his laptop screen and trying to force his fingers to start typing. All he needed was the hair, the glasses, and the Best Mom in The World mug and he would practically be her twin. Somehow, he ended the weekend feeling more tired than when it had begun.

  
And then Monday had rolled around. Percy doesn’t know why 8 AM classes were even offered on Mondays, let alone why he’d signed up for one. The day was starting to look especially bleak, until his phone vibrated during his last class with a text from Annabeth who was begging for a distraction after her physics lecture. He drove to her dorm (a nice residence hall with hardwood floors and flower vases on the windowsills) and fucked her until she couldn’t recite the cluster-decomposition theorem, upon her request. Percy never thought he would be turned on by physics but it’s different when Annabeth talks about it while she’s also choking out a sob with his hand clamped over her mouth because the walls in her dorm are thin.

  
Tuesday, his swim coach had wailed on him for how bad his time trials were that day. He couldn’t focus, but he hadn’t been about to tell his coach why. If he’s honest, Percy had been looking for an excuse to see Annabeth again. He texted her once he got home and she was there in less than half an hour. She gave him another blowjob, this time in the shower. Then they had made out until Percy was hard and she went down on him again, this time in the kitchen, where he’d run after realizing that the pasta he was making had boiled over and spilled all over the stove.

  
Wednesday, Annabeth hadn’t even bothered to give him an excuse. He’d apologized to his professor after his phone had buzzed for the fifth time in two minutes and checked it under the bench, then choked on his own breath. He hadn’t heard a single word during the rest of the lecture. A five-minute sprint saw him in the Architecture hallway, halfway across campus. He really hopes no one disabled needed to pee while Annabeth rode him on the closed toilet seat.

  
And today. Percy can’t look at Annabeth without thinking about how, only a few hours ago, they’d had sex on his bed, his dining table, his kitchen floor, and his couch.

  
When he says it’s getting a little out of control, he might be understating it. Only a tiny bit, though.

  
Okay. It’s a lot out of control. It’s totally out of control. At least he’s not in denial.

  
Luke’s in the midst of signing off when Annabeth tries to walk past Percy without touching him, which is a tough thing any day considering the width of the booth is only about Percy’s arm span. She doesn’t succeed, which Percy expected. What he doesn’t expect is for her to trip over a cable lying on the ground and fall face-first at the soundboard. Percy turns and catches her just in time, his hands gripping her waist so tightly he’s afraid it might bruise. Which is stupid to worry about, since he’s pretty sure that she already has so many bruises on her that it wouldn’t really matter. He also gasps out her name in surprise and worry, to his embarrassment. All the same, she squeaks at the pressure and stares up at him wide-eyed and blushing; he can feel her pulse racing. Percy gapes at her and sets her on her feet. Grover pauses what he’s doing and looks between them like there’s an invisible banner unfurling between them that might explain why they’re acting so weird. Even Luke turns to look once he’s switched off his mic.

  
“Everything alright?” he asks, concern colouring his face.

  
“It’s fine, I just tripped,” Annabeth says, back in control of herself. She straightens her shirt, takes her place, and cracks open her book like Percy isn’t resolutely looking anywhere but her, Grover isn’t still following them like they’re a tennis match, and Luke isn’t looking at her in a way Percy’s doesn’t like. She’s not fragile, she doesn’t need protecting, Luke can stop looking at her boobs right now, he’s not being sneaky-

  
Percy might be a little jealous. Which is frustrating, because he can’t do anything about it, because they’re supposed to be keeping their casual sex a secret by acting like everything’s normal and not drawing attention to themselves. Which they’re doing a really bad job of.

  
Percy sits down beside Annabeth in such a way that she’s completely blocked from Luke’s view. He’s not surprised when he hears him say, “Well, see you next week,” a bit glumly and then the click of the door. Annabeth is still resolutely keeping her nose stuck in her book.

  
The turn of the hour comes, and Percy has never before been more grateful for having to wear this heavy pair of headphones, bless them. Without them, the deafening silence of the studio would be unbearable. He feels bad for Grover, he really does. He’ll probably bring him some Fair Trade espresso next week to apologize for how all over the place he and Annabeth are and for ruining what was probably a much less uncomfortable broadcasting spot before they were hired.   
Presenting tonight is something straight out of a nightmare. It’s halting and hesitant and for some reason they’ve started with a segment about some campus trend and there’s no way out but straight through. Percy realizes in hindsight that overcompensating isn’t helping them stay under the radar. This whole ignore-each-other/pretend-the-other-doesn’t-exist thing is only making it worse.

  
Of course, he’s also a bit ambivalent (hurt? Upset? Angry? Frustrated? Sad?) that Annabeth wants to keep them a secret. He has to keep reminding himself, for the sake of rules number 2 and 4 and also because he doesn’t want to lose the tiny fragile thing he has with Annabeth and consequently her, that they’re not dating, and that Annabeth doesn’t want to be dating. They’re friends-with-benefits, no-strings-attached, nothing more, nothing less.

  
Actually, maybe less. They’re not quite friends. But god does Percy want to be friends. They get along so well anyway; it wouldn’t be hard.

  
When they finally end the conversation about why everyone on campus is suddenly sporting the colour orange, the first play-queue starts. Percy switches off his microphone and feels like he could cry with relief. He slips off his headphones and turns to ask Annabeth for a private word about how they need to rethink their strategy on how to act normal because their relationship has been so complicated from the beginning that they’re not quite sure what normal is supposed to be and maybe they should just act like friends that seems like the best solution-

  
Annabeth already has her headphones off and her pencil to her book, still ignoring him. Percy leans over her shoulder and reads the title on top of the page: Titus Andronicus.

  
“Still doing that Shakespeare unit?” he breathes against her ear, making her jump. She slams her book closed. The sound is too loud in their confined space. She gives him a significant look that says what are you doing, that’s not casual.

  
Percy tries to convey that this whole “act natural” thing needs work and I think we should just act like we’re friends. It might be too long, though, because the responding expression he gets from her is what? They have to work on their telepathy, he guesses. He waves it off, mouthing later, and fishes out his phone. He starts when Grover coughs from behind them, then twists so he can look at him. Beside him, he sees Annabeth do the same. Grover’s leaning back on the soundboard’s table with his elbows locked, his eyebrows drawn together.

  
“Is everything okay?” he asks. “You guys seem a little out-of-sorts today.” Poor Grover. If there’s anyone getting all the aftershocks of their explosive relationship, it’s him. The guy deserves a medal.

  
“Don’t worry about us, Grover,” Annabeth says, sounding apologetic.

  
“Yeah, everything’s fine,” Percy chimes in. “We’re trying out the whole ‘getting along’ thing, we’re still trying to figure it out,” he adds, because he doesn’t want to lie to Grover, even if his answer is still a partial omission of the truth.

  
Grover smiles, obviously relieved. “That’s great, guys. I thought you would be able to work well together, which is why I picked you and I was starting to get afraid that I would have to make a not-great decision about hiring someone else.”

  
Percy tries to avoid looking at Annabeth. “Working well together” is one way to put what they’ve been doing lately.

  
“We’re. We promise, we’ve put everything behind us,” she says reassuringly.

  
Grover smiles again. He starts to get up, but then stops. “Actually. Thalia and I used to have this tradition,” he starts, looking a little repentant, a little tentative. “Every third show of the month, we would go out to dinner after as like, a fun bonding thing, Luke used to tag along sometimes. I think he liked her.” He smiles wistfully. “Anyway, um. I think it might be nice if we do that today, if-if you don’t already have plans. I just- it might be a good way to get to know each other better, and like, you guys are cool and I know this really nice local bistro with really good vegetarian food-”

  
“I’m in,” Percy says. He likes Grover, and he gets to have a nice dinner with Annabeth. It’s a win-win situation. He looks at her.

“Of course,” she says, “that sounds really nice.” 

“Cool,” Grover says. He leaves to head in the direction of the bathroom, calling a quick, “Be right back!” over his shoulder. 

Immediately, Percy turns to face Annabeth. “I don’t think this whole-”

“We need to rethink our strategy-”

They stop, waiting for the other to finish speaking. Percy opens his mouth again. “I. We never really, like, acted ‘normal’ before, so I think we should just act like friends.”

“That’s…exactly what I was going to suggest,” she says. “It’s a lot easier to be consistent like that, for one.”

“Right, okay, cool,” he says, rubbing the back of his neck. “We also, uh…” He trails off to check that Grover isn’t back yet. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but like.

We’ve been having a lot of sex. Like, a lot.”

Annabeth, to her credit, doesn’t look phased. “I think it’s the novelty. Once the newness of actual availability wears off, then I think we’ll calm down.” She looks like she’s debating something, and then says, “Also, Percy. Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve gotten any?” 

“Yeah, yeah, point taken,” he says. “The last person I slept with was my ex-girlfriend in freshman year.” He pauses. “Actually, she was the only person. But she did that sneaky thing, you know? Where you apply to one school and then transfer to another without having to reapply?”

Annabeth nods. “I considered doing that to get here for the architecture program, but then my SAT results came back and I realized I wouldn’t have to resort to that.” 

“I bet you had a 2400,” he says, grinning. 

“Percy,” she admonishes, and Percy could get drunk off her saying his name like that. “Stop, oh my god.”

“You did!” he exclaims, gleeful. “You totally did!”

“No, I didn’t,” she says, shoving his shoulder. “I got a 2350.” 

He laughs, leaning back in his chair and face to the ceiling. Annabeth gives up trying to look stern and joins in. The air between them feels electric, but not in the way it is when their pupils are blown out by lust and clothes are being shed. It feels like driving around town at 1 AM with the windows down and music blasting; it feels like giving the barista at Starbucks a made-up name; it feels like paintball fights and beach splash wars. It feels like the beginning of something. 

But maybe Percy’s just being hopeful. 

The rest of their show goes so much better than the first bit. It goes so well that Percy feels like they actually deserve to go out to dinner, which he can now afford thanks to his wonderful new job. Well. Maybe not quite so new anymore.

  
It’s within walking distance of the music store, which means that it’s probably crawling with students on weekends, but since it’s Thursday night it’s quiet and mostly empty. It’s nice, Percy thinks. There’s softly glowing candles in jars on every wooden table and the walls are covered in modern art, mostly featuring vegetables. He can totally see Grover coming here with his girlfriend and drinking organic chicory coffee on a rainy afternoon. 

They get a table by the window, the dark night broken by the reflection of the candle on their table. He keeps sharing covert, laughing glances with Annabeth over his menu at each progressively more obscure and pretentious item. Grover tells a story about how once he and his friends got chased up a big pine tree by an angry dog that leaves them in stitches. The menu even has blue food. Percy feels really happy. 

And then Grover’s phone starts ringing. He picks it up and barely gets out a hello before his face drains of colour and Percy hears him stop breathing. His voice shakes. “I- oh my god, is she okay now?”

Percy and Annabeth tense. Annabeth, to Grover’s left, puts a gentle hand on his shoulder. He jumps. 

“Yeah, yeah, I’m on my way, I’ll be right there,” he says, getting up from the table and pushing in his chair. He hangs up and looks at them as apologetically as he can through his panic. “Juniper had an accident at work, she’s in the hospital now, I’m really sorry but I have to go.”

“Please, Grover, don’t worry, Juniper’s more important,” Annabeth says, alarm and worry on her face. 

“If there’s anything we can do just let us know,” Percy adds, his heart tugging for him. 

“Thanks, guys,” he says gratefully. Percy watches him jog to the bus stop with a weird loping grace because of his limp. 

“I hope she’s okay,” Annabeth says, still looking out the window and chewing her lip. Percy has to actually sit on his hands to stop himself from reaching out and taking her hand. 

“I’m sure she will be,” he says. 

“Yeah?” she asks, and it’s throwing Percy for a loop that Annabeth, normally so sure of herself, is asking him for reassurance. 

“Yeah,” he says, as gently as he can. Annabeth gives him a soft smile over the table as thanks. Her foot nudges against his and he nudges back. 

A pause falls over the table, filled with the soft sounds of other tables and a bit off muffled clanking from the kitchen. It’s then that Percy realizes that he is now at a table with Annabeth at a very nice bistro lit by candlelight. Rule number 4, he reminds himself. 

Annabeth seems to be thinking along the same lines. “This…isn’t a date. It’s not. It’s just a dinner between two coworkers.”

“Who also bang a lot on the side,” Percy adds before he can stop himself. 

She kicks him under the table. “Percy.” 

“Sorry, sorry,” he says. “This is just a nice dinner to carry on a nice tradition and Grover just happens to not be here this time.” Annabeth looks gratified. “And we’re not going back to my place after because that’s not what coworkers do.”

Annabeth gives him a look. “Who said anything about not going back to your place after this?” 

Percy grins at her and nudges her foot. She nudges back, smile just as big. The moment is broken by a waiter who comes to take their order. 

“Is it just me, or did everything you order have something blue in it?” Annabeth asks him after the waiter’s left and they’re both sipping cider because it’s seasonal. 

“It’s, uh…” Percy trails off, smiling fondly. “It’s something my mom and I do.”

“Yeah?” she asks. 

“Yeah,” he says, hearing the stupidly dopey tone he always uses when he talks about his mom. “My dad left us before I was born, and she married a huge jerk a few years after that to support us.”

“I’m- I’m sorry,” she says, her face falling. Percy steps on her toes, just a little, enough to get her to smile. 

“Hey, don’t worry, this story has a happy ending.” He smiles as disarmingly as he can. Percy’s probably imagining the hint of pink on her face. “Anyway, one day she got into this huge argument with him because he thought that blue food didn’t exist and like. Okay. You need some information about my mom first.”

He sighs dreamily. “My mom is the greatest lady in the world.” 

Annabeth giggles. And then claps a hand over her mouth like she’s horrified that sound came out of it. Percy huffs a laugh. She kicks his ankle. “Shut up.”

He just beams at her. “Anyway, about my mom. She…she sacrificed a lot for me, like. She always wanted to be a writer but she had to quit school to take care of her uncle when he got cancer and.” Percy stops, because his throat is tight and his eyes are burning. He’ll never get over how unfair life has been to his mom. He can’t believe he’s about to cry in the middle of a restaurant. 

“Hey, hey, you don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to,” Annabeth says, worry making her chin stick out a little. 

“No, it’s fine, I’ll just give you the short version,” Percy says, feeling embarrassed. She gives him a gentle smile and he goes on. “Uh, right. So, yeah, Gabe told her that there was no such thing as blue food, so she always went out of her way to make blue food when she could, added food colouring and stuff when it wasn’t naturally blue. It’s…I guess you could call it our ‘thing’, she still does it today.” And then Percy adds, “Pumpkin pie just doesn’t taste the same if it’s not blue,” because everything feels too sappy and bittersweet. 

She laughs. “That’s…really sweet, wow. Your mom sounds amazing.” Her eyes are bright in the candlelight. Her hair’s framing her face, and she’s smiling in a way that makes Percy feel really, really lucky. 

“What about you?” he asks. “Got any dumb family traditions?” 

“Oh look!” Annabeth says too loudly, too purposefully. “Our food’s here.”

Two steaming plates get put in front of them. Percy picks up his fork but doesn’t forget that she tried so obviously to change the subject. And then he moans when he tastes his food. He doesn’t even acknowledge Annabeth kicking him again, conscious of how loud he’s being. 

The sky darkens to an inky black, the candle starts to swim in its own wax, and Percy starts falling in love with Annabeth sometime between the main and dessert. He’s not sure what prompts it, whether it’s the way her face lights up when she talks about architecture or the way she laughs when he tells a really bad joke or the way she keeps playing footsie with him under the table. 

He's definitely breaking rule number 4, but it doesn’t count if he keeps it to himself. Besides, he thinks, he’s probably going to get over it sometime soon. Like Annabeth said, it’s probably the novelty. 

After dinner, they stumble into the backseat of his car in the deserted parking lot, too desperate to assert that it wasn’t a date to go back to his apartment. Percy hits his head on the doorframe as he scrambles to get inside after Annabeth and swears under his breath. She laughs, braces herself on her elbows. 

Percy climbs in between her spread legs and settles his weight evenly on his hips pressed against hers and his hands, settled on either side of her head. She kisses him without preamble, sucking his tongue into her mouth. He tastes the apple crumble they had for dessert. He transfers his weight to one hand so he can reach down between them and start kneading her breasts. She sighs into his mouth. 

The zip on his jeans is starting to become painful against his raging erection, but Annabeth rolls her hips up into his and the pleasure it brings with that edge of pain makes him wheeze against her lips. He punctuates it with a borderline-violent downward cant of his hips. A tiny hiccup-like noise escapes her; he catches it with his mouth and chases the breath she takes in after, down the smooth line of her throat that’s gleaming in the light of the streetlight, covered in yellow and green stains. He pauses to suck a bit at her pulse point, on the side he hasn’t marked yet. There’s a sharp kick sent to the small of his back by her heel to tell him to knock it off, don’t leave marks, but the jolt accidentally makes him bite down. Annabeth moans. Loudly. Percy kisses it gently to apologize and abandons the spot so he can reclaim her mouth. Her neck is an area that he can’t be trusted with. 

One lazy hand winds through his hair, gripping the fine hairs at the base of his neck. Her other hand, confident and practiced in its motions, slips under his shirt and roves up, rucking up the fabric in the process. Percy takes this as the sign that all their clothes need to be off right now. 

“Annabeth,” he says, biting gently on her earlobe. “I can’t take my shirt off unless I get up.” 

“Who says we have to be naked for this?” she asks, her lusty expression at odds with her matter-of-fact tone of voice. Percy’s suddenly really grateful for his tinted windows. All the blood in his body goes rushing to his groin and he just wants to take these fucking jeans off. 

“I do,” he says, and his voice sounds predatory to his ears. Annabeth shivers. Reluctantly, she lets him lean back to pull off his shirt, tossing her own shirt to the floor of the car and unhooking her bra with lightning fingers. He props himself back over her and leans down enough that they’re chest to chest. He sighs at the contact. It quickly turns into a groan when she rolls her hips back up into his, her hands spread across his back. Percy probably shouldn’t be this turned on at the thought of taking her in his car in the middle of a parking lot, dirty and shameless. That doesn’t stop him from bucking into the cradle of her hips over their clothes and tracing her teeth with his tongue. 

“Fuck, Annabeth,” he says as he reaches down between them to unzip his pants. She’s probably going to leave scratch marks with the way she’s roving her hands down his back. Shoving them down to his knees is a challenge with only one hand, but somehow he manages to kick them off the rest of the way along with his shoes, and holy mackerel it feels good to be out of those. Annabeth shimmies her jeans and underwear down to her ankles, toes off her shoes, and kicks off her pants to follow them. She spreads her legs wide enough for him to fit back in between them. He slides a finger inside her without warning, feels her pulsing heat around his digit, and swallows hard. She lets out a whine that turns into a high-pitched moan as he adds another finger and starts scissoring them. He grinds down on her clit with his thumb, reveling in the soft whimpers she’s making. 

After a heartbeat, her slender hand wraps around him and starts stroking him. The calluses on her palm make his breath stutter. “Oh, fuck,” Percy mumbles into her neck. “I-ah god, fuck-!”

She gasps against his hair, “There’s a condom in my bag, can you reach-?”

He pulls his fingers out of her; she whines gently at the loss of stimulus but serves her right for being considerate of the interior of his car like the goddess she is.

Not wanting to use that hand to rifle through her bag, he braces himself on the seat with that one and flails his other along the floor, trying to find it. It’s tough; he has to keep pausing every few seconds when Annabeth changes her rhythm or twists her hand. 

A wallet, pens, a tube of lip balm- aha! He pinches the little foil package and hands it to Annabeth, because this position is precarious and he can’t roll it on one-handed. A small ripping sound fills the cabin of his car, almost fully muffled by the heavy sounds of their breathing. Decisive fingers roll it onto him. Taking a breath, he lines himself up at her entrance and on the exhale, pushes all the way in. 

They moan when Percy bottoms out, his hips flush against Annabeth’s. He shakes in the effort to hold himself still, to let her get adjusted. Soon enough, he feels her roll her hips against him to tell him to start moving, which he does gladly. The pace he sets is hard, fast, almost punishing- he’s not going to give himself an opportunity to be tender. Percy’s going to keep thrusting into her and rubbing her clit like this until he can forget the way his heart is tugging like it’s caught on a fishing line. 

The car starts to rock side-to-side; anyone looking would know what’s happening. He slams into her, hard, fast, deep, unrelenting. He angles himself so that with every time he rams back in, he hits a spot inside her that makes her cry out wantonly and clutch the edge of the seat like a lifeline. His chest becomes slick with sweat, but he keeps on. He concentrates on the feeling of him sliding in and out, in and out; anything to stop him from thinking. 

“P-Percy,” Annabeth gasps out. “Percy, oh-!” He groans into her shoulder and drives in harder, switches from his index finger to his thumb, pushing a weak sound out of the back of her throat. His arms are starting to shake with the effort to keep himself steady in the wake of the rocking of the car. Annabeth stiffens underneath him, her eyes brimming with overwhelmed tears under his onslaught and then she’s clenching down around him and a harsh gasp escapes her. She arches up against his chest, and Percy feels her racing heartbeat everywhere. He grunts, fucking into her until his thrusts become erratic and he collapses on top of her with a full-body shudder as he comes. They lie there for a while, chests expanding and contracting in the attempt to get breath back into their chests. 

“Percy, you’re squishing me,” comes Annabeth’s voice from under him, and silently he pulls out and sits in the spot that her legs just vacated. He can see her pulling her clothes back on in the darkness as he slips off the condom, ties it, and wraps it in tissues from the box his mom insists he keeps in his car. His clothes are shoved under the seat; he fishes them out and pulls them on. It takes a lot of awkward contortion and wrangling in the confined space. His gaze gets drawn to her and they make eye contact. An understanding passes between them, and they clamber out on shaky legs to get into the front seats. 

When they’re settled and Percy’s hands are resting on the steering wheel, he stares out the windshield as he says, “You want me to drive you home?”

“Please,” Annabeth says. The car is quiet on the way to the dorms, but not the peaceful kind of quiet. Percy’s too wrapped up in his own thoughts and he feels like the leaden feeling in his chest is leeching into the air. When they reach her residence hall, she gets out and murmurs, “Goodnight.” He mumbles something similar, and he blinks when the door closes. He stays and watches her retreating back until she disappears through the door. 

Percy gets home and throws out the condom in the bin outside his building. The first thing he does when he unlocks his apartment door is shuffle to his bedroom so he can flop down onto his bed. He stares at the ceiling, breathing in the scent of detergent-y sheets, but can’t stop feeling like there’s a hand squeezing his heart. 

Annabeth has been very clear about what she wants out of this: physical gratification, and nothing else. She’s too focused on her academics to commit to a relationship, and Percy respects that. He’s just afraid that if it turns into anything but what they’re doing now, she’s going to leave him in the dust. 

Percy isn’t going to lie: when he’d met Annabeth, his first thought hadn’t been oh gee, it sure would be nice to have casual sex with her. Once he’d gotten past his annoyance and frustration, it had become abundantly clear that he couldn’t keep his feelings for her platonic. And now. Now. 

As much as he tells himself that it’s just a stupid crush and it’ll pass, there was a shift inside him today. Somehow, he knows that his feelings for Annabeth aren’t just going to fade away on their own; if anything, they’re probably going to get stronger. But he can’t risk that; he can’t. Not when it means she might drop whatever they have now. Percy’s- god, Percy just wants to be around her, as much as he can, in any way he can. 

He fists his comforter and traces the lines where the walls join the ceiling. He’s got to stop this while he can. It’s breaking rule number 4, fucking rule number 4, and he doesn’t think they even established what would happen if a rule gets broken because she just expected that they wouldn’t break them. He takes a deep breath. Annabeth doesn’t like you like that, he tells himself. It’s not going to happen, and you shouldn’t want it to happen. 

There’s a heavy feeling in his chest, like he swallowed a bowling ball and it got stuck in his ribs. He pictures her in his mind’s eye: curly blonde hair, smooth tan skin, flashing grey eyes, a smile so disarming it makes his heart constrict even now. They’ve got rules, rules that shouldn’t be broken, but Percy’s got to set himself his own boundaries. 

He gets up and pulls his clothes off and his high school swim team sweatshirt on with heavy limbs. The smiling faces of him and his mom at Montauk blink at him once he unlocks his laptop at the dining table. He rubs a tired hand over his face and opens his econ paper. It’s going to be another long night. 

***

>>From Annabeth: The boiler at my residence hall broke and now there’s no hot water ugh [sent 7:16 AM]

>>To Annabeth: that tanks [sent 7:28 AM]

>>From Annabeth: Was that a pun? [sent 7:28 AM] 

>>To Annabeth: …maybe [sent 7:28 AM]

>>From Annabeth: Oh my god I hate you [sent 7:29 AM]

>>From Annabeth: Can I use your shower later today? [sent 7:29 AM]

>>To Annabeth: y would I let u use my shower if u hate me [sent 7:29 AM]

>>From Annabeth: PERCY [sent 7:29 AM]

>>To Annabeth: yah yah of course u can [sent 7:30 AM]

>>To Annabeth: you’ll have to meet me at the pool after practice at 4.30, i wont be home before that [sent 7:31 AM]

>>From Annabeth: Thank you so much, I’ll see you there. [sent 7:31 AM]


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so much for bearing with me, folks-- i wrote this all in 2016, so there are two things to keep in mind: 1) I didn't really know much about sex when I was writing this so obviously it's not super realistic but I can't be arsed to rewrite any of it (in this chapter or other chapters) and 2) take any of the dates mentioned within a reference timeframe of 2016.

Percy’s hand slams into the wall and he rears up, gasping for breath and tearing off his goggles and swim cap in one go. The water around him is a sloshing frenzy. His chest is burning in a good way; he feels like he swam faster than he ever has before. He rests his palms against the pool deck and squints up at his coach through the bright floodlights.

“That was a good run, kid, really good. New PB.”

Percy grins. “Thanks.”

“Now get going; if you’re in the water any longer you’re going to pull your shoulder.” His coach, a gruff man, really does care about him. Even if he makes Percy work on his kick more than should probably be considered ethical. He stalks off. Percy pulls himself out of the pool and heads to the changing room, his jammers leaving a dripping trail behind him. A teammate walks out the door as he’s heading in and slaps him on the ass. He turns to look over his shoulder, winks and wiggles his fingers flirtatiously. They both start laughing uproariously, but Percy abruptly stops once he sees a head of blonde hair sitting high up in the stands, watching him. It’s too far to make out the expression on her face, and Percy’s not sure whether he wants to or not.

He showers, changes, and towels off his hair distractedly. He doesn’t notice that he’s trying to pull his socks on over his shoes until he hears a locker door slamming somewhere farther inside. Percy doesn’t know why he’s so nervous.

Actually, he does, if he thinks about it. Annabeth coming over for sex is something familiar by now; there’s no way he’s going to let himself confuse it for anything more than it is. But Annabeth coming over for something this domestic, even if it’s just a favour- it’s new territory.

He’s just being dumb, he tells himself. He’s overreacting. _Get over it._

When Percy emerges from the locker room, Annabeth’s still sitting in the bleachers, gaze trained on him. He climbs up to meet her, heart racing. _Stop that,_ he thinks. The stands make a dull metallic ringing noise every time he puts his foot on a step; the sounds of others in the pool echoes around them.

“Hey,” he says, standing in the aisle level with her stand.

“Are you aware that your time would have beaten the 1976 Olympic world record?” she says without preamble, looking at him with something suspiciously like awe. He looks at his shoes self-consciously and rubs the back of his neck. “Seriously, you should be on the national team with times like that!”

“I’m here on a swim scholarship,” he mumbles. “But I got a lot faster in the summer and there’s a big tournament coming up in the spring. And. You know. Olympic scouts will be there.”

Annabeth’s still looking at him like she’s never seen him before. “I had no idea you could swim like that.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he says, his cheeks starting to burn. “Now wipe up your drool and let’s go.”

She flushes and stuffs her phone into her pocket. “Shut _up_ ,” she hisses ferociously. Percy just laughs. She swats at his shoulder; he catches her hand and kisses her knuckles without thinking.

They freeze. Suddenly the sounds of the pool are ten times louder. Annabeth’s face is burning red, while Percy’s has drained of colour. He drops her hand like it’s burning him.

“Sorry,” he stutters. “Sorry, oh my god, sorry. Rule number 2 and rule number 4. Shit. Shit, sorry.”

“Let’s just forget it,” she says brusquely. They walk out of the pool and get into Percy’s car in silence.

“Thanks for letting me use your shower,” she says, breaking the silence.

“No problem,” he says, still a bit lost in his own thoughts.

Percy can’t believe he did that. He can’t believe he let himself do that. He spent all of last night moping around in his bed, telling himself that he needed to get over his feelings for Annabeth, and setting boundaries for how much he’s allowed to touch her outside of sex (not at all), how much he’s allowed to think about her (not at all), and how affectionate he’s allowed to be at any given time (not at all). He thinks that, in hindsight, maybe these might be a bit too ambitious.

If there’s one thing Percy’s learned from competitive swimming, besides the actual swimming stuff, is that it’s good to persevere, but trying too hard for too long will only get you hurt in the end. Maybe he should just let things run their course. If he tries too hard to stop his feelings for Annabeth, they’re probably just going to get stronger.

But there’s still a tiny, chilling terror lodged in his chest that if he lets himself fall in love with her, she’ll find out and then leave. Disappear from his life. He can’t risk that; he can’t. Percy doesn’t know what to do. This is way more than he signed up for.

“I thought thinking too hard was my job,” Annabeth says from the passenger seat.

“Har har,” he says. “I was just thinking about, uh.” He stalls, brain wildly trying to find an excuse. “The Olympics.”

She exhales heavily next to him. “Percy, you’re…you’re incredible. They’d be crazy not to scout you.” When he stays quiet, she ploughs on. “And you’re not too old, you’re definitely not too old. Nathan Adrian was 23 when he won gold. I- watching you swim is- it’s amazing. You’re amazing.”

“Were you checking me out, Chase?” he says, smirking, trying to cover up the racing of his heart at her spiel. He feels heavy, but the kind of heavy you feel with intense gratitude and emotion.

“Obviously,” Annabeth snorts. “What else was I supposed to do in a room full of hot half-naked boys?”

Percy feels a swirling mixture of smugness that she indirectly called him hot and jealousy that she ogled his teammates just as much. He turns on the radio for something to do. There’s a Mariah Carey song playing; he grimaces a little. Beside him, he hears Annabeth start humming along.

“Are you a Mariah Carey fan?” he asks incredulously.

“What? No!” she says. Her blush and frantic eyes give her away.

“Oh my god, you totally are!” Percy starts laughing, hard enough that the car swerves a little and he rights it with a swear.

“I hate you,” Annabeth announces, crossing her arms and staring out the window. Her foot is still jiggling in time with the music.

“I don’t want a lot for Christmaaaaaaas-!” he starts singing, leaning towards her. She whips around and snorts.

“Percy, it’s not even November!” she yells.

“Theeeeeere is just one thing I neeeeed!”

“I am getting out of this car right now.” Her smile is bright enough to light up the dark side of the moon.

“Okay, okay,” Percy says, smiling so hard his cheeks are starting to hurt.

When they get into his apartment, Percy sets a towel that he dug out of his hall closet in Annabeth’s arms. “You can use my shampoo and stuff, if you don’t have any. I hope you don’t mind smelling like an Irish spring.”

“Why am I not surprised that’s what your soap smells like?” she says, smiling gratefully. She steps into the bathroom and clicks the door shut behind her. After a few moments, he hears the shower start up. Percy sets his bag down next to the dining table and hangs his jammers up on his bedroom door handle to dry. His apartment feels oddly stifling, like the focal point of his attention has shifted to the sounds of the shower through the door. He putters around his kitchen, bringing out mugs and spoons and digging out hot chocolate powder and blue food colouring and boiling the half-full kettle. It’s cold outside; the temperature’s already close to freezing. The chill is coming in through the windows. He makes a note to call the building super, who hasn’t turned on the heating yet.

He doesn’t know why he does it. But there’s a mug of blue hot chocolate in his hand, the other one steaming on the kitchen counter, and he’s pulling up twenty-year-old archived news articles on the internet, all with headlines reading something along the lines of “S. S. Olympia Disappears”. It’s a story Percy knows by heart, but he still does this every once in a while. Sits down and reads through them all again, like they’ll have something new to tell him. Like there’ll be a message hidden in the text.

Maybe it’s the talk about the Olympics, a far-off pipe dream that’s starting to look more and more real. He’s going to finish his degree in marine biology, and that’s something he’s planning on doing for the rest of his life, but man. The Olympics. Swimming on the world stage. In the back of his mind, Percy knows why he wants this so bad. It’s not the glory, even if that’s great. It’s not the fame or the money. It’s not even the swimming, because that’s something he can do without competing at that level. It’s the hope, the stupid, childish hope that somehow, his dad will know. That he’ll see his son competing for his country, and recognize him, and want him.

“Are you crying?”

Annabeth’s looking at him with concern on her face, her wet hair slung over one side of her head. Percy wipes at his cheeks; he’s surprised when they come away wet.

“Shit,” he says. “I’m not normally this emotional, this is like, the most I’ve cried since I was twelve.” He huffs out a half-hearted and soggy laugh. She sits beside him, doing a double-take at his blue hot chocolate. Percy snaps his fingers. “I almost forgot, hang on.”

He bolts out of his chair and wraps his hand around the second mug of hot chocolate. It’s still warm. He hands it to Annabeth. She looks surprised, like she didn’t expect this small kindness from him. He bites his tongue to stop himself from saying, “Well, it is _friends_ -with-benefits.” There’s something soft about this moment that he doesn’t want to shatter.

 _Rule number 4_ , he reminds himself.

“Thank you,” she says, gently. Her voice sounds like how the word soft feels.

“No problem,” he says, wiping the last of the tears from his face. Annabeth follows the motion.

“Is. Um. D’you want to talk about it?” she says, like she’s not sure of the protocol for comforting your fuckbuddy. Percy supposes that that’s a situation in which it’s reasonable to not know what to do.

He sighs. “I, uh. Remember how there was a short version and a long version of the blue food story?” He sits at the chair he just vacated, the articles staring up at him. She nods. He turns his laptop around so she can look at the screen. She looks puzzled.

He takes a breath before starting. “My parents met when they were both really young, at my mom’s cabin in Montauk. They were only together for one summer, but…Anyway, I was born, and I remember my dad coming to visit a few times, maybe the sound of his laugh.” Percy trails off, lost in memories that he hasn’t dug up in a long time. “We haven’t heard from him since. He was a sailor, you know, on those big ships out in the ocean. The S. S. Olympia.” He hears Annabeth suck in a breath, realizing. “ _Lost at sea,_ that’s what my mom always used to say. Not dead.”

“Percy,” she says quietly.

“I don’t know, there’s a part of me that still thinks he’s alive and that like. If he sees me at the Olympics, he’ll recognize me and get in touch. I feel like…I wasn’t good enough for him, and that’s why he never came back for us. That he knew I’d be such a screw-up my whole life. Which is dumb,” he says, swatting at his eyes, which are starting to burn again. He’s never said this aloud to anyone, but there’s something in him that trusts Annabeth with this. His chest feels heavy and light at the same time.

He hears her set down her untouched hot chocolate and reach across the table to take his hand. She squeezes, and he squeezes back, a little too hard. The sound of muffled honking from outside seeps into the quiet.

“You’re not a screw-up,” Annabeth says.

He laughs bitterly. “I got kicked out of every school I ever went to, Annabeth. I barely qualified for the marks in high school for this swim scholarship, my dyslexia made school so hard. It still does. You’re telling me that’s not a screw-up?”

“Yes,” she says firmly. “Having dyslexia doesn’t make you a screw-up. I’m not.”

Percy looks up. “You have dyslexia?”

“Yeah,” she says, tucking her still-damp hair behind her ear. “It’s tough but you can find strategies that work for you.” She pauses, chewing her lip. “I can help you, if you want.”

“I, uh. Yeah. Please. I’d really appreciate it.” He looks at their joined hands, tells himself that he’s allowed to keep his hand there. He can’t tell whether the feeling in between his ribs is pain or something else, something warmer.

“And with the way you swim, I wouldn’t be surprised to see you in Tokyo in 2020,” she says. It feels like she’s looking straight through him, into him. “And I’m not just saying that. You’re amazing, Percy, and anyone would be a fool to think that you’re not good enough.”

Percy blinks. Looks down. There’s a feeling blooming in his chest, and he is terrified to put a name to it. He knows what it is, he knows it, but he’s not going to. Annabeth squeezes his hand once more and then withdraws her fingers. He lets her.

“Now. I’m going to finish this hot chocolate, and you’re going to close all those articles, and then you’re going to drive me home because I’m super hungry and I have leftover lasagna in the house fridge.” Her tone leaves no room for argument, and he knows she’s trying to cheer him up by distracting him.

“Okay,” he says, and downs the rest of his cold hot chocolate in one go. He doesn’t ask her to stay for dinner; he’s afraid she’s going to say no.

The drive to her residence hall is calm. She makes small talk about her day and moans about a group project, and Percy supplies sarcastic commentary. It feels familiar in the way you get up every morning and breathe without thinking about it. That’s exactly what it’s like, Percy thinks. Being with her is as easy as breathing. And then there’s a voice saying _rule number 4_ and he feels his heart collapse every time.

Annabeth gets out of the car and leans down with one hand braced on the car door. “Thanks for letting me use your shower.”

Percy had almost forgotten that’s why they’re here in the first place. “Thanks for…Um. Thanks,” he says, stilting.

She gives him a tight smile like she knows what he’s thanking her for. “I’ll see you around, Percy.” She turns and walks into the front door. She doesn’t look back once. Percy blows out a shallow breath and starts up his car again to head home. A run sounds like a great idea right now; the nippy air will steal his breath and make his throat sting. He’s going to run until his lungs are burning, until his chest is heaving, until he forgets all the reasons why he can’t let himself acknowledge the depth of his feelings for Annabeth, until he forgets his feelings for her. Until he forgets himself.

And once he gets home and changes, he does. He runs until the sky is velvety blue and he can just make out the stars through the smog. There’s a stitch in his chest, but it’s lost in the valley of tall skyscrapers and an even taller sky. Percy feels small, inconsequential. And suddenly he recognizes where he is.

Percy’s suddenly filled with a pang of longing for his mom. He jogs the last couple of blocks and greets the doorman who’s been there since they moved in to the building when Percy was a really little kid. The elevator floor gets covered in tiny drips of sweat around where he’s standing. When he reaches her floor he jumps out the doors as soon as the gap is wide enough and nearly sprint to her door. He knocks. Waits.

A middle-aged guy with salt-and-pepper hair opens the door, his eyes widening behind his glasses. “Percy?” he says. “What are you doing here?” He looks down at the small puddle of sweat on the carpet. “And why are you so sweaty?”

“Hey Paul,” Percy says, smiling tiredly. He missed his step-dad. “I, uh, I was in the neighbourhood so I decided to stop by.”

“I-come in, come in.” Paul seems to remembers himself and ushers Percy inside. “Your mom’s in the bedroom, why don’t you clean up a little and I’ll go get her.”

“Sorry for dripping everywhere,” he says, running a hand through his soaked hair to get it un-plastered to his face.

“It’s fine,” Paul says, and then Percy smiles and heads to the bathroom. Before he closes the door he calls Paul’s name. He turns to look at him.

“It’s good to see you,” Percy says.

Paul smiles. “You too, kiddo.”

The first thing Percy does is sacrifice the hand towel to wipe off all the sweat that’s starting to go stale all over him. He dries his hair as best he can and splashes water on his face. The first thing he’s going to do when he gets home is shower. He drops the towel in the laundry basket they still keep under the sink.

When he emerges from the bathroom, he’s ambushed by a fluffy head of brown hair streaked with gray. Percy’s mom squeezes him tightly, like she’s never planning on letting go. Whenever his mom hugs him like this, he forgets that he’s more than half a foot taller than her. He feels like a little kid again.

She pulls back so she can squeeze his cheeks between her hands and pepper kisses all over his face. “Oh, my sweet boy, my baby, it’s so good to see you.” She releases him before tapping his cheek lightly. “Why don’t you ever call your old mother anymore?”

Percy does his best to look guilty. “I’m sorry Mom, it’s just. College, and swimming, you know.”

She frowns at him but Percy still feels like she’s smiling. Their apartment is warm and homey, and it’s filling Percy with the same feeling. He _really_ missed his mom. He gets dragged to a kitchen chair and sat down while his mom goes to the kitchen and makes a plate of food for him, like she always does. It’s not until he starts shoveling roast into his mouth that he realizes that he hasn’t had anything except that hot chocolate since lunch. He checks his watch and nearly spits out his food. It’s 10:14 PM. No wonder Paul was surprised to see him.

“Paul said that you were in the neighbourhood and decided to stop by, but I don’t believe that for a second,” his mom says, siting down across from him; her eyes are roving over him like she’s checking for scratches or dents or something. “My busybody son is never in this neighbourhood.” She smiles at him, a little worried. “Is everything okay, Percy?”

Percy swallows thickly. “It’s…it’s fine, Mom, everything’s fine. I just went for a run.”

“At this time of night?” Paul says, looking at him like he’s done something stupid. Which maybe he has.

Percy shrugs. “Nah, I started when it was still light out.” He only realizes his mistake when his mom sets down her mug of tea like a judge sets down their gavel.

“Percy Jackson, do you mean to tell me that you went out for a four-hour run in the middle of October?” She bristles.

He cringes. “I didn’t mean for it to be four hours. I just needed to…clear my head a bit.”

Paul shares a look with his mom. “Oh no, Sally. I know this look.” He looks at Percy and says in a conspiratorial fake-whisper, “Girl trouble?”

Percy looks down at his plate. He can’t look his mom in the eye and lie to her. “Not really.”

“Well, when you’ve got it figured out, bring her over,” his mom says, disregarding everything he said. Percy doesn’t know how she does that, knows when he’s lying or not. She ruffles his hair and takes his plate to the sink. She’s been like this since he moved out; taken care of the small things for him, doted on him even more. Percy thinks that she’s having full-time mom withdrawal symptoms and needs to stock up to tide her over until the next time he visits.

“Well, we’re not letting you walk back home at this time of night,” Paul says good-naturedly.

“And absolutely no arguments from you, young man,” his mom calls from the kitchen, like she knew that he was opening his mouth to argue. “We’ll have to change your sheets but everything else is good to go.”

“But- I have class tomorrow,” he says anyway.

“It’s Wednesday tomorrow. Your first class is at 10, that’s plenty of time.” He wonders how she knows that, and then sees his class schedule tacked onto the fridge. It makes his heart melt a little.

“Okay,” he says, because secretly, he loves being taken care of as much as she loves taking care of him. It’s a good trade off.

They talk for a while, the three of them catching up on life, and Percy feels in some ways like he never left, like he always does when he visits home. Their banter is all familiar, and the smells of this house even more so. This is exactly what he needed. He feels more human. Sometimes, he just needs his mom.

Soon enough, swim practice and his virtual marathon catch up with him. He almost falls asleep at the table when his mom, gentle but steely firm, all but shoves him into bed in his old room, blue walls still peeking out from in between posters of various bands and athletes and pictures of the ocean. He breathes in the scent of his adolescent musings, still lingering even after all this time.

“Goodnight, sweet boy,” his mom says. She smooths away the hair from his forehead, presses a kiss there, tucks his covers under his chin like he’s a kid, and turns off the lights. The door clicks softly behind her.

Percy’s just drifting off to sleep when his phone buzzes beside him. He groans into his pillow. Rolls over reluctantly to check what it is.

>>From Annabeth: Hey, I’m just checking that everything’s okay [sent 12:02 AM]

>>From Annabeth: You still seemed upset when you drove me home and I’ve been thinking about you for hours [sent 12:03 AM]

>>From Annabeth: Not like /thinking about you/ thinking about you I meant like I was worried [sent 12:03 AM]

>>From Annabeth: Not that there was really any reason to worry I just don’t like seeing you sad [12:03 AM]

>>From Annabeth: Which is a reasonable response that’s not breaking any rules I can back this up [sent 12:03 AM]

Percy grins sleepily, taps out a reply.

>>To Annabeth: ty its fine im at my moms [sent 12:04 AM]

>>To Annabeth: ur cute when ur flustered [sent 12:04 AM]

And with that he promptly passes out.

 

Percy arrives at his History elective well-rested and content from his mom’s blue pancakes. Pancakes are serious business, after all. His chair is waiting for him invitingly; today feels like a good day.

It abruptly stops being a good day when their last in-class essay gets passed back and Percy sees the unfriendly little 52% scrawled in red ink on the corner of his paper. It looks so innocuous, like it’s not casually ripping apart his ability to breathe or focus. He stuffs it into his bag and looks around surreptitiously to check if anyone saw. His neighbours are looking at their papers with varying degrees of satisfaction. Percy clenches his fist under the desk.

It’s not like he’s not used to getting bad grades. He flunked his way through elementary and middle school, fought really hard in high school to get the grades to make the swim scholarship. But university is on a whole other level, and he doesn’t have the time or the support system he had before. He scraped by in freshman year of college, by the skin of his teeth, the threat of losing his scholarship looming over his head. Still looming, if he’s honest.

There’s a weight in his chest every time he thinks about his grades. He doesn’t do too badly in number-based classes; those are a lot easier. But classes like History and English, with all those words and letters that just swirl around on the page? Forget about it.

He feels like shit. All he wants to do right now is either melt off of his chair and slip through the cracks in the tile floor, or leave the room and punch something. The rest of the class drags on. Percy tries to get the sick feeling of disappointment and anxiety to motivate him to do better. It doesn’t really work, not when this is the third paper he’s almost failed. There’s a desperation lodged in his heart, but he’s not quite sure what he’s desperate for.

When he snaps his second pencil with the force of his grip, he resigns himself to asking someone for their notes. The tiny wooden shards lie scattered across his page, and Percy swipes them away with an impatient hand. It’s not until the end of the lesson that he realizes how desperate he is for Annabeth, just to hear her voice, or feel the warmth of her breath. Anything that makes him feel less shitty. She does that, just by being around.

Percy freezes, his page balled up in his hand as everyone around him starts to pack up. The scraping sounds of chairs being pulled back and shuffling papers assaults him from all sides, but all he can hear is rushing in his own ears. He feels like he’s on the cusp of something, something big. But he can’t figure out what it is.

 _What’s new,_ he thinks. His essay is burning a hole in his bag. Suddenly the need to hear Annabeth’s voice is overwhelming. He haphazardly shoves everything into his bag, slings it over his shoulder, and bolts out the door to find a quiet hallway. He digs his phone out of his pocket and dials her number in three seconds flat.

It rings once, twice, and then-

“H-hello?” Annabeth sounds out of breath. Really out of breath. But the fluttering anxiety in his chest settles just like that.

“Hey,” Percy says. “Bad time?”

“No, no, it’s fine,” she pants. “I was running, you caught me in my sprint leg.”

“Sorry,” he says. And then, “I didn’t know you ran.”

“I’m on the track and field team, dummy,” she says.

“Oh.” A strange feeling settles in Percy’s chest. They don’t really know much about each other, do they? “What events do you do?”

“Hurdles, distance, javelin, discus, and pole vault. I like to be well-rounded.” He can practically hear her grin over the phone. A freshman he doesn’t recognize starts clanking around with the vending machine across from him.

“I’ll bet you do,” he says, feeling as light as he did this morning. He can picture her right now, hair up in a ponytail, hands braced on her hips. It’s amazing how all she has to do is exist, and Percy feels a million times better. And then he gets hit over the head with what he couldn’t figure out it class. Breathing is suddenly impossible.

_Fuck. Fucking shit._

He’s in love with Annabeth.

_This is definitely breaking rule number four._

“Is there a reason you called?” Annabeth says, and Percy’s jarred back to the present. He scrambles for an excuse. He can’t just say that he wanted to hear her voice. “I’m free tonight if that answers your question.”

“I-uh-yeah, yeah, that’s great.” He thanks his lucky stars that he was spared having to make probably the blusteriest explanation of his life. His heart chants _I love you_ every time it beats. His fingers are tingling, like they have popping candy inside them.

“See you then,” she says, and then hangs up. Percy puts his phone back into his pocket numbly and sinks down onto the floor, holding his face in his hands.

His heart feels like it’s swelling like a barrel bursting its rings. It’s an oddly painful feeling. Every cell in his body is chanting her name. He can’t believe he’s let himself do this. He told himself, ages ago, when they first started this back in September, that he couldn’t let himself fall in love with her. For weeks, he fought it off. He tried his best to tell himself to get over it. He ran, and he trained, and he worked, but none of it would take his mind off of her. And then, when he’s with her. Every time, every single time, he told himself it meant nothing, but it always felt like something. And Percy never realized how dangerous that was until now, when he’s here almost two months later, sitting on the floor, probably late to his next class, trying to wrap his head around the fact that he’s in love with Annabeth Chase.

Well, this is it, Percy thinks. He’s broken the cardinal rule, _no feelings_ , and there’s no way he can go back. He doesn’t know what he’s going to do. It feels like lying to keep having sex with her when it means something much more to him than it does to her. But what’s he supposed to do, run away, say _sorry, but this can’t go on_? He knows he should say something, and be frank about what’s going on but.

Percy’s scared. Annabeth signed on to this for some casual fucking and that was it. _No strings attached_. And he’s scared that if he tells her how he feels, she’s going to disappear. He fists his hands in his hair, grunts a little. His pants are picking up the dust from the floor.

He’s just going to have to pretend that everything’s the same. Because really, he can’t stay away from her. He never could.

Percy pushes himself to his feet and dusts himself off. He’s going to get a reaming out from his professor for being this late, and he knows it.

***

Percy’s sitting on his couch, watching basketball reruns in between Halloween-themed commercials when he hears a knock on the door. He switches off the TV and gets up, stretching. The short walk from the living room to the front door is filled with dread in every step. He’s terrified something’s going to slip out as soon as he sees her.

He realizes he doesn’t have to worry about that; the second the door’s open, Annabeth says hello and then grabs his collar, drags his mouth down to hers. Once the door clicks shut, he backs her up against it, gripping her hips. Her hands have found their favourite spot, fingering the hair at the nape of his neck. His heart is racing. Her lips are as soft and warm as always, wrapping around his like he’s coming home.

 _Stop thinking like that,_ he tells himself.

Suddenly, he’s filled with the need to control something. Anything. His mind is filled with the oppressive weight of thoughts about his grades, what that means for his place on the swim team, what that means about his Olympic dream. Thoughts about his dad, how his feelings for Annabeth have spiraled out of control. Unconsciously, he grips her hips harder.

“Annabeth,” he mumbles into her mouth. “I want to try something.”

“Mhm?” she says, too busy running her fingers over his scalp.

“I want to tie you up.” 

She stops. Leans her head back against the door. Her cheeks are that pretty shade of pink again. Looks up at him with darkened eyes.

“Why on earth would you want to do that?” she says, but she doesn’t sound against it.

“I-I don’t know,” he says. “It just kind of popped into my head.”

“No, Percy,” she says. “Tell me why. Tell me what you want to do to me.” Her expression should be rated R. Not suitable for audiences under 18.

Percy shudders. Somehow, she knows how to help him, even if she doesn’t know she’s doing it, and being in control of _something_ will do that. He bites his tongue to stop himself from saying _I love you_.

The force that he’s applying to her hips is probably going to leave bruises tomorrow. He kisses her behind her ear; she collapses against him.

“First,” he says, slowly, in a low voice. “I’m going to strip off all your clothes.” Annabeth shivers at his voice. This feels better than it should, Percy thinks. “And then, I’m going to lay you on my bed.” He starts mouthing at her pulse point. “And then, I’m going to tie your wrists to the headboard. And _then_ , I’m going to pin you down and fuck you until you beg. Fuck you so hard that you won’t be able to walk straight for a week.”

Annabeth keens and grinds down on his thigh. “Yes,” she breathes. And really, that’s all the invitation Percy needs.

In one, two, three, four, five paces, give or take a few- her legs are wrapped around his waist, she’s rolling her hips against his, he’s rutting up against her, his hands taking greedy handfuls of her ass to keep her aloft. Her lips _burn_ against his- soft, warm, hungry, needy. Her hair is everywhere, getting in the way of tongue and teeth and lips and hands. He keeps bumping into walls, walking blindly forward, too wrapped up in Annabeth to navigate. Every time she hits the wall, a breath gets knocked out of her. Every time, he swallows it and pulls her hips closer, closer. He’s drunk off this feeling, where the entire world shrinks to her, and how he’s holding her, and their shared heartbeat he can feel everywhere. Annabeth is everything to him, like this. She hung the moon, she breathes life into everything she touches. She makes Percy feel alive. _I love you I love you I love you._

If Percy could get enough blood to his brain to think clearly, he might be able to remember what he keeps telling himself: that he doesn’t mistake this as something more. He would laugh at himself, if he could. As it is, it’s all he can do to give himself a few seconds to breathe every now and again. He can feel the way Annabeth is surrendering herself to him with the raw want in her kisses, in her possessive fingers in his hair, in the desperate rolling of her hips. In this moment, Percy feels like she is _his_. Which she’s not, the back of his mind reminds him, jarring the stream of lust running through his brain. She’s not his, and she doesn’t want to be his.

 _Let me have this,_ Percy thinks desperately. _Let me have this one time._

Because no matter whether she’s his or not, he’s utterly _hers._

They barge into his room, after their harrowing journey through the single hallway in his apartment. Percy unceremoniously tosses her onto the bed, climbs over her to chase the squeal that gets punched out of her upon impact. He reclaims her lips. Their kisses are never gentle anymore, never have been. Annabeth has never allowed it, so Percy doesn’t push it. There is nothing about them that is allowed to be gentle, because gentle means something more than four rules.

And Percy- Percy loves anything he can get. Sometimes it’s hard to wrap his mind around the fact that he gets to be with Annabeth at all, in any capacity. What she wants matters more to him than what he wants. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t feel like there’s a hand squeezing his heart and cutting off his airways every time he has to stop himself.

Annabeth’s skin feels hot to the touch as he slides his hands under her shirt. Impatiently, she wriggles underneath him, reaches down to pull it over her head. Percy surprises himself when he grips her wrists with an iron fist and pins them above her head. Her eyes are wide as she stares up at him, gray iris swallowed by black.

“Keep. Your hands. Here,” he growls into her ear. He feels her shiver against him. “If you move them, I’ll have to punish you.” He doesn’t know what he’s saying, he doesn’t know where this is coming from. But from the way Annabeth is nodding meekly and gazing up at him through her eyelashes, she doesn’t seem to mind.

Slowly, deliberately, Percy drags his hands under her shirt, over her bra and onto her shoulders, the fabric bunching off in the process. It lands somewhere to the side after he pulls it off her arms.

Annabeth’s chest is heaving. There’s a red flush sprawling from her cheeks to the valley between her breasts. He reaches behind her to unclasp her bra and throw it behind him in a practiced motion. Hands steady, he hovers them over her breasts, mimes tracing across her collarbones and down her sternum. Her breath hitches in her throat. He follows with his lips. Never once does he let himself come in contact with her feverish skin, ghosting over it.

“P-Percy,” she whines. “Please.” Her hands lunge out to grab his, to pull them onto her where she’s arching up against him but can’t quite reach. Percy’s dick throbs. The way she sounds, the way she looks- it’s turning him upside down and inside out. Firmly, he takes her wrists again and pins them above her head.

“Annabeth,” he says in a low voice. “What did I tell you do to?”

“You-” she gasps. She’s a quivering mess and he’s barely touched her. “You told me to- to keep my hands there.”

“I guess I’ll just have to tie you up to make you behave, now won’t I?” he says, getting up from the bed to rifle through the top drawer of his dresser.

“Percy!” Annabeth cries. “Percy, please, _please_ -!”

Percy swallows thickly. “Please what?” He pulls out two ties: one is blue and silky, and the other is patterned with clown fish.

“I-” she says, and he almost comes right then from how _wrecked_ she sounds. Her arms are almost twitching from the strain of not moving them. Slowly, he makes his way back to the bed and hovers over her. Runs caressing fingers down the inside of her wrist and garners a shiver. Slips the tie around it and the other end to the bed post and ties it tight. He leans over her to tie up her other wrist, making sure to ghost his breath over her skin.

His clothes hit the floor with a dull thump as Percy sheds them. He kicks them out of the way. With reverent fingers, he slides Annabeth’s jeans down her hips and pulls them off fully. Now she’s fully naked, laying splayed on his bed with her hands tied above her head. Percy’s never been this turned on in his life before. He climbs overtop of her and rests his weight on his forearms, boxing in her head. The way she stares up at him, pupils blown, like he’s the only think that exists, makes him realize. This- this is how he looks at her all the time, like she’s the sun, and he loves her, God he loves her. But this is different. This isn’t love, he has to remind himself, this is lust, and that’s all she feels for him. She follows the rules, and Percy loves her.

“Hold on to me,” he says, and she wraps her legs around his waist, panting.

The whole time, he doesn’t forget the pulsing _I love you_ s in his veins, but it’s easier to ignore when he’s fucking into Annabeth so hard he sees stars.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello my sweet, sweet friends thank you so much for sticking with me and this incredibly sporadically updated story. here is an update + some bonus Annabeth POV   
> (PKT is actually an MIT fraternity, and their jungle juice tastes fine…..usually.)
> 
> [as of right now this is unedited!]

Parties aren’t really Annabeth’s thing. It’s not the drinking, nor the dancing, nor the music that bothers her- she likes all those things. It’s more the obnoxious frat boys and jocks who turn up in droves, wearing red Solo cups like crowns and acting like they own everything the light touches, and then some.  But not even the human garbage from Phi Kappa Theta can or will stop her from coming to their annual Halloween party, strictly toga-attire. It’s the stuff of legend. Or so says Silena, a senior whose PB for high jump is slightly taller than her. She dragged most of their track team out here, because “we work too hard to not show off these track butts in togas, ladies”.

Annabeth didn’t think much about that until she’s walking across campus with a pack of hurdlers who’ve been pre-gaming for an hour already, the cold October breeze barely biting enough to distract her from the fact that she’s wearing a bed sheet in public and there is a real danger that the world is about to see her favourite pair of underwear. By the time the first traces of vomit appear, Annabeth either wants to go home and watch a psycho thriller, or get so drunk that she doesn’t mind her entire modesty being held up by a couple of safety pins and a rushed Google search. When they walk in, there are cheers loud enough to hear over the dance remix of “Spooky Scary Skeletons” playing on Phi Kappa Theta’s expensive sound system. She forgot that Silena, from Alpha Theta Epsilon, along with many other members of her track team, constitute the university’s social elite.

Annabeth doesn’t bother with small talk or contingency plans- as soon as she spots someone she recognizes beside the drinks table, she makes a beeline. It’s Will, from her classics lecture. The thick humidity of heaving bodies weighs down on her, and she can already feel beads of sweat on her back. The lights are dimmed, and every surface is covered in that fake cobweb they sell at dollar stores.

“Hey, Will,” she says, squeezing herself in between two grinding couples. He turns and his face splits into a wide grin, a red flush already high on his cheeks.

“Annabeth! Hey,” he says. “Let me get you a drink.” He twists off the cup on the bottom of the stack, which Annabeth appreciates, and then pours in something vile and red from the cheap Halloween punch bowl on the table. Annabeth smells it and grimaces.

“It’s supposed to be _spoooooky_ ,” he says apologetically, “but Travis and Connor’s idea of spooky punch is red Kool-Aid and whatever has the highest percentage.”

Annabeth takes a sip and coughs a little. He wasn’t kidding. “I didn’t know you were in a fraternity, Will,” she says with a grin.

“Shhh, don’t tell anyone,” Will says, pretending to look over his shoulder. “The best way to build connections for med school is to get cozy with all the admissions board’s sons.” They both laugh, but the music is so loud that Annabeth can barely hear it. “But I’m one of the nice ones, see? I’m even spending my whole evening here to stop some poor girl from getting roofied.”

“What a saint you are,” Annabeth says dryly over the rim of her cup. It tastes better the more you drink, Annabeth discovers. She opens her mouth to ask something else, but gaze drifts over Will’s shoulder and-

Oh. _Oh._

Her face floods bright red, and not because of the contents of her drink.

Percy Jackson is standing in the middle of the next room, looking like a god. The way his toga is draped makes Annabeth’s heart start to pound. The dim lighting is hitting his face at an angle that makes him look like the Apollo Belvedere. Her throat goes dry so she downs the rest of the punch in her cup, which goes straight to her head. The hickies all down her neck, hastily covered in a thick layer of foundation, burn. She’s never seen him look like this- she’s never seen anyone look like this.

She’s so flustered that she doesn’t even notice Will turn around to look at what she’s looking at. He looks back at her coyly. “Admiring the view?”

“Wha- I- no, no, I was just-”

“Go on then. Leave me to pine my night away for all the gorgeous straight boys.” He nudges her towards the next room and gives her a wink. Annabeth isn’t feeling very steady on her feet. She blinks again and looks at the people surrounding Percy. And suddenly, there’s an ugly, heavy feeling sitting in her chest.

There are bodies gyrating all around her, drinks all over the floor, skulls and spiders perched on every available surface, all in a sea of white togas. But her gaze zeroes in on the hand draped over Percy’s exposed chest. Annabeth doesn’t even think, doesn’t know what’s propelling her through the cramped hallway, doesn’t apologize to the girl whose cup she just knocked over- she doesn’t stop until she’s right in front of them. Percy looks uncomfortable, moving away from the girl, someone she doesn’t recognize, with caramel-coloured hair, who clearly doesn’t see that Percy isn’t interested. As Annabeth approaches, he looks up, and she barely has time to register the surprise on his face before she’s dragging him away by the front of his toga.

“Hey, hey, Annabeth, what-” Percy looks startled, if relieved to have escaped. He grabs the wrist gripping his toga and holds her still long enough to spin her around. “Annabeth, what are you doing?”

“You’re _mine_ ,” Annabeth hisses. Whoa. Where did that come from? And when did the floor stop being so solid?

Will wasn’t kidding when he said the Stolls put whatever had the highest percentage. That jungle juice was hiding a nasty surprise.

“You- I’m- _what?”_ Percy chokes, looking at her like she’s a ghost.

“We’re- I’m- we’re _us._  You’re _mine_.” Annabeth doesn’t understand why he doesn’t get it. She splutters for a second and then a thought pops into her head- this must explain it. “Ha! Rule number 3!”

“Rule number 3?” Percy parrots dumbly.

“ _Yes_ , Percy, rule number 3! You’re mine and I’m yours,” Annabeth chirps at him. The ugly feeling in her chest is gone now, replaced with a light happiness that his hand has migrated from holding her wrist to her hand. She wonders why he looks like he’s in pain.

“Annabeth,” he says gently, swiping his thumb across her hand, “you’re drunk. Maybe I should get you some water and find your friends.”

“ _Yoooouuuu’re_ the only friend I want to be with right now. And you’re _mine_ ,” she says glibly, pulling him closer and pressing a smacking kiss to the pectoral muscle closest to her, blessedly exposed by his toga. Annabeth was going to have words with Will about supervising the Stolls next time they made jungle juice, because there was no way that this was just alcohol.

In the red lighting in the PKT house, Annabeth can’t tell whether the flush streaking his cheeks is artificial or not. “Annabeth, I don’t think that’s what rule number three means.”

She pouts at him, honest to god pouts, and leans against his chest, pressing her cheek to his bare skin. Percy’s breath stills and Annabeth is so glad that they’re wearing thin white bedsheets to pass as togas; he looks and feels so good, and it won’t conceal anything if her wandering hand gets any lower than it already is.

“Rule number three can mean anything I decide it means because I said so,” she mumbles against him. She glances up under her lashes and Percy looks so fond that her heart could burst. Annabeth doesn’t know why this feeling swells in her; she’s never felt this kind of fondness for him before and she doesn’t know if she likes it. She hopes it’s a side-effect of the Stolls’ jungle juice.

Suddenly, the song changes, and Annabeth’s head shoots up and she gasps. “Dance with me, Percy!”

She stumbles backwards and drags him with sweaty hands into the middle of the heaving crowd. Percy follows her. He looks equally focused on making sure she didn’t trip and hit her head on the sticky floor and enthralled by the way her smile is lighting up her face. Annabeth wants to keep him looking at her like that for as long as she can. As soon as he gets within a foot of her, Annabeth turns and presses her back into his chest. The steady bass provides a tempo for the grind she starts and oh _god_ something starts stirring in her gut that makes her want _more_ and _more_ and _more._

There is a haze over everything. The only thing Annabeth can focus on is the way Percy is moving his body behind hers: his hips in time with the music, his fingers lacing with her, his breath on her damp skin as she tilts her head to the side to move her hair off her neck. The lights in the frat house are flashing red, flashing blue; Percy is flashing a wolfish grin over her shoulder, flashing a hint of pec that verges on cleavage that sends heat shooting from her gut. Annabeth rolls her ass just _so_ at the climax of the song and that’s it, Percy huffs a tortured breath and she smiles in victory. One hand moves up, up, thumb just brushing the swell of Annabeth’s right breast (she sighs, leans back with more force); the other hand slips down, down, _down_ , pinky tucking just under one of the pleats of her toga (she takes a shuddering breath). The swell of sweating, gyrating bodies presses them closer together. Under the cover of numbers of the semi darkness, Percy drags his nose along the column of Annabeth’s neck, his panting breaths going straight between her legs, her heady sighs not getting enough air into her lungs. He inhales deeply, drags his tongue across her racing pulse, must taste the salt from her sweat. It makes her hips jerk backwards into him, and Percy bites off a groan.

Annabeth swivels in his arms and presses herself against his front. Percy looks down at her and Annabeth looks up at him and there it is again, that swelling feeling in her chest and. Alright, Annabeth isn’t _stupid_ , she knows exactly what this feeling is, but _oh_ does she not want to deal with it. So she does what she does best: she tips Percy’s head down and drags him into a kiss, hard and filthy, all teeth and tongue and absolutely no room for feelings other than lust.

“Annabeth,” Percy gasps against her mouth, and the swelling feeling only gets worse. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

“Let’s get out of here,” she says before sucking his tongue into her mouth. Percy makes a strangled noise.

“I came here in someone else’s car,” he says, and Annabeth’s not going to walk all the way back to her dorm, side by side. That’s not going to help anything.

“Upstairs, there’s a rec room upstairs,” she gasps out. Percy’s hands have migrated to her ass; the darkness of the room and the crowd of bodies gives them cover, otherwise she knows Percy probably wouldn’t. Probably.

Half dragging him by the hand and half being propped up by his other arm, Annabeth leads Percy out of the heaving mass and up the stairs. The cool air hits her like a wall; it does wonders for her head. The feeling of Percy’s fingers laced between hers becomes all of a sudden so vividly, startling real that the headiness all comes rushing back anyway.

Annabeth glimpses a pool table through a doorway and pulls them both through it. Percy snaps it shut behind her. The room is dark, lit only by the streetlights outside the window, but it’s light enough that Annabeth can make out a couch in the corner. Wordlessly, she turns to Percy, whose expression in the half light sends a shiver down her spine. The space between them is unbearable to her burning skin. She hasn’t felt the need to be this close to someone in a long time.

Annabeth presses her index finger on his chest, hard, enough that it makes Percy’s smile go sharp. She pushes him this way, back, back, back into the darkness of the room. He matches her pace for pace until the backs of his knees hit the sofa and he jolts and sits down hard. She takes the opportunity to climb into his lap, toga bunched up around her waist.

“Annabe- _mmf-_ ” Percy starts, but Annabeth kisses him before he can get any farther. His hands come up to her hips instinctively, and Annabeth can work with this. He opens his mouth to her tongue and nips back at her when she pulls his lip into her mouth and bites down too hard to be nice, and she can work with this. Annabeth shuffles further onto his lap, practically grinding herself down on his crotch, and she can work with this.

She can’t work with this.

First, it’s her hips that stop rolling, just tucked in close. Then it’s her hands, going from tugging at Percy’s hair to winding the sweat-damp locks around a finger. Then it’s her teeth, and then her tongue, and suddenly they’re kissing like it’s more than a precursor to sex. Percy follows her lead, he always lets her, and Annabeth notices that his pulse actually speeds up when they slow down. She doesn’t dwell on it, she _doesn’t_.

Especially not when Percy’s mouth is moving sweetly against hers, drawing out a breathy sigh when he laps gently, gently at her bottom lip. His hands rove up the expanse of her back, catching on the fabric of her makeshift toga. She giggles- fucking _giggles_ like a sorority girl- when he mumbles an apology into her mouth.

And Annabeth knows, she _knows_ that the Stolls didn’t add anything to the jungle juice, knows that this is breaking every convoluted rule she’d set up to avoid this in the first place, but she can’t pretend that she likes kissing Percy like this more than how she always does. That she likes the gentle way his hands, strong and warm, hold her face. That she likes Percy, period, and that all it took was a toga party to tip the final domino.

She wants to say something, anything. She can talk her way out of anything, she’s clever, whip-smart, and she knows it, but she also just wants to keep kissing him. There’s a peacefulness here in this PKT rec room while the thumping bass downstairs bleeds through the floorboards, not loud enough to cover the sounds of their slow and heavy breaths.

***

Percy’s not new to the Phi Kappa Theta Halloween toga party. He came here with his team last year, even snuck into it his senior year with the help of one of his friends with a brother in Columbia Greek life. His two years of experience don’t help him put on his toga any easier, though.

“Somebody help me with this!” he yells. They’re at the vice captain of the senior team’s apartment, because it’s tradition that they all go together (and that the team freshmen have to wear water wings with their togas, but they don’t get told that until halfway through the pregame. Percy thinks he pulled his off last year, he really does).

“Just go naked, Jackson!” someone yells back at him.

“You wish!” he says. He hears someone come up behind him. Well, hearing might be a bit of a stretch- it’s so rowdy in here that it’s hard to here much of anything. He turns, and sees that it’s Lee Fletcher.

“Need help?” he says, grinning. He’s nursing a beer, more sober than everyone but Percy. Sometimes he thinks twice about his sobriety at parties like this, but all it takes is one thought of Gabe to put it from his mind.

“Ah, thanks man,” Percy says, lifting up his arms.

Lee ties the white bedsheet draped around him that mostly covers his boxers, pins it, and pats him on the back. “No worries,” he says, before they both get dragged over to where the upper-class captain and vice captain are doing body shots.

When the clock strikes ten-ish, they all pile into their designated drivers’ cars, not wanting to swarm the subway half naked and drunk. It’s a short drive over, and then they’re all spilling into the PKT house. Cheap plastic skeletons and liberal amounts of caution tape are thrown all over their front lawn, as if to pre-emptively trash their decorations.

Percy knows the drill at parties like this, he’s gotten used to it as an athlete. Stick with the team to enter, and then go off to do your rounds. It’s all something that Percy finds kind of pointless, the shallow socialising for the sake of appearances, but the part he wishes he could avoid? The girls.

More specifically, the crossfaded girls who haunt frat parties like they’ve been hired as spectres. Parties aren’t really Percy’s thing in the first place, but ever since he’d joined a varsity team and bulked up from lift, they’re like his own personal kind of hell. They rove around in packs, and if he’s not careful, he barely emerges alive.

Besides, there’s only one girl occupying Percy’s mind right now. Taken it over is probably more accurate; Percy can’t stop thinking about the last time Annabeth was in his apartment without blushing.

Navigating the PKT Halloween party in particular is a whole ordeal when you’re sober, because everyone completely _loses_ it. Percy thinks that maybe the Stolls and their questionable jungle juice have something to do with it, but the fraternity president, Beckendorf, is a trustworthy guy and he doubts that he would let drugged jungle juice slip by.

Percy sticks close to his teammates for as long as he can, but eventually they all disperse and leave Percy stranded in a sea of cheap skull decorations and gyrating freshmen. He grips his red Solo cup half full of Coke, thumbing agitatedly at the rim. It’s too early to leave- if he goes home now, he’s just going to end up doing his lab write up out of guilt, and that’s _not_ how Percy wants to spend his Halloween. Even if there’s a guarantee of more blue candy at home than there is in the PKT house.

Doing homework on Halloween. It’s definitely Annabeth’s influence.

Percy tries to put Annabeth from his mind, for the time being. If he dwells on it, he’s just going to get mopey, and then he’s going to have to fight off _don’t be sad, dude, it’s Halloween!_ tequila shots. He bobs his head along with the music, grateful that the dim coloured lights are probably hiding the frown that’s starting to creep over him.

He feels a hand grab on to his arm, small and hot. Percy whips his head to his side and sees a girl there, her toga halfway off her shoulders. Her mascara is running, Percy thinks idly.

“Hey there,” she says, reeking of flirtatiousness. Percy’s really not in the mood for this. “I haven’t seen you around before.”

“Yeah, I, uh- I’m not really into partying that much,” Percy says, rubbing his free hand over the back of his neck.

“Oh, that’s a shame,” she says, her hand sliding over his shoulder and on to the bare part of his chest. He feels like jumping out of his skin, and not in a good way. He’s not naked, but he might as well be from how exposed this toga makes him feel.  “I’d love to get to know you better.”

From the way she’s plastered herself to his side, Percy has a pretty good idea of how she wants to get to know him. He takes a step back, is just about to let her know as gently as he can that he’s not interested, sorry, when he sees someone bulldozing towards them from his peripheral view. He looks up; it’s Annabeth, her blonde hair loose around her shoulders and her toga draped across her body in a way that makes Percy lose his words. His chest feels too tight, too full; he loves her so much. Fuck.

Her hand clenches the front of his toga in a vice, and he’s yanked away from the girl before he can get the chance to open his mouth in surprise. She weaves her way between drunk college students like an obstacle course, leaving Percy to mouth apologies as he gets swung into them. He can’t say that he’s disappointed to have been ambushed like this, if it means getting away.

“Hey, hey, Annabeth, what-” Percy says, grabbing her wrist and spinning her around to face him.  “Annabeth, what are you doing?” The delicate skin above her collarbones is flushed in patches, like she’s covered it with makeup.

“You’re _mine_ ,” Annabeth hisses. Percy feels his lifespan shorten.  

 “You- I’m- _what?”_ he chokes, gaping at her. PKT must be piping in hallucinogens through the vents, because there’s no way she just said that. Percy feels the words like a physical pain.  

“We’re- I’m- we’re _us._  You’re _mine_.” Annabeth spews some half-formed words before her eyes light up like she’s just cracked a physics problem. “Ha! Rule number 3!”

“Rule number 3?” Percy says, feeling like he’s missing something.  He slides his fingers from her wrist to twine between her fingers, squeezing just a little. He needs something to ground himself.

“ _Yes_ , Percy, rule number 3! You’re mine and I’m yours,” Annabeth chirps at him. Percy’s not normally a crier but the waterworks might just start if he thinks about what she’s just said too hard. He loves her so much, and she only wants sex, Percy has to remind himself. She’s been drinking, and she only wants sex.

“Annabeth,” he says, swiping his thumb across her hand, “you’re drunk. Maybe I should get you some water and find your friends.”

“ _Yoooouuuu’re_ the only friend I want to be with right now. And you’re _mine_ ,” she says, reeling him in towards her. She smacks a kiss against his chest, and Percy feels like he’s burning.

“Annabeth, I don’t think that’s what rule number three means,” he says, swallowing thickly. Her hand travels. He looks at the ceiling, recites the species in the subphylum Medusazoa, counts down from ten.

“Rule number three can mean anything I decide it means because I said so,” she says, mumbling from where her cheek is squashed against him. Annabeth is never this clingy with him, never indulges in gratuitous, affectionate touching, and Percy likes this so much, even if he does feel a little guilty about it because she’s drunk.

 “Dance with me, Percy!” she gasps, and he can’t even hear the music over the pounding in his ears, over the pounding in his chest. But he goes with her; he always does.

They make it into the centre of the heaving mass of bodies, Annabeth pulling him backwards looking like the best bad news Percy’s ever had. She spins and presses herself against him, back to chest, rolling her hips against him in time with the bass that’s so loud Percy can feel it in his teeth. He follows her movements, because somehow he likes dancing when it’s with Annabeth, and slides his hands down her arms to lace their fingers together. Dancing like this, with their clothes on, feels somehow more indecent than when they’re moving the same way in private, when the bedsheets are on the bed only. Percy likes being in public with her so much it hurts, but he also has manners. He’s fighting to stay as gentlemanly as he can at a frat party because his mother didn’t raise him to feel up girls at parties, but with the way Annabeth’s moving against him, he’s losing the battle. Finally, she catches him as the bass drops in a way that knocks all the breath from him. He gives in, hands moving to rest against the swells of her body that he’s always itching to get closer to. He grins when she sucks in a breath at it, nosing along the porcelain column of her neck. The room is soupy, and hot, and there are dancing people pressing against them like sardines; it’s strangely private in the semidarkness. Percy can’t get enough air into his lungs.

The taste of salt hits his tongue as he drags it over Annabeth’s racing pulse. She lets out an obscene, keening sigh, and her hips stutter back against him harder than before; Percy has to catch himself before he lets out a sound to match.

Annabeth spins in his arms and looks up at him, all wide eyes and flushed cheeks. Percy loves her. He tries to push it from his mind when she drags his mouth down to hers, all teeth and tongue.

“Annabeth,” he says.  His hands, against his better judgement, move from her hips to grab her ass. It’s dark, so he figures he can get away with it.

“Let’s get out of here,” Annabeth whispers into his mouth. Percy makes a strangled noise.

“I came here in someone else’s car,” he says. He doesn’t want to take the subway with a drunk Annabeth climbing all over him.

 “Upstairs, there’s a rec room upstairs,” she gasps out, and Percy takes her hand as she drags him there, trying to make sure she doesn’t tip over. They snake through the dancing crowd, the milling small-talkers, until they hit the stairs and Percy feels the temperature drop. When they reach the rec room, he shuts the door behind them, and the noise drops.

In the half light of the rec room, thumping bass coming up through the floorboards, Annabeth looks a figure out of time. She was made to wear a toga, Percy thinks, even if it’s just a dumb bedsheet held up by safety pins. She’s beautiful, and Percy loves her, and she only wants sex. _Rule number four_ , Percy reminds himself. _Rule number four._

Percy lets himself be pushed backwards onto a couch, the point where her index finger is pressed against his chest like a brand. He’s so absorbed in the way her eyes are so dark and so intent that he doesn’t notice he’s reached the couch until it hits the backs of his legs hard and he’s forced into sitting down to catch himself. When Annabeth climbs into his lap, toga sliding up to expose her gloriously strong and smooth legs, Percy feels his heartbeat start double time. Even after so many weeks of this, he never gets tired of this feeling. Of her being close to him, of their bodies slotting together like this, warm and solid and present.

But Annabeth has been drinking, and she’s been acting so strangely since she found him here that Percy doesn’t know if she’s sober enough.

“Annabe- _mmf-_ ” he says, but Annabeth kisses him before he can even get her name out. Percy closes his eyes and lets her control the kiss; he’ll stop things before any clothes come off to check in with her.

It changes by degrees. She stops biting, starts moving honey sweet; stops grinding, starts settling; stops gripping, starts holding. If Percy’s heart wasn’t racing before, it is now. He doesn’t know what’s happening, but he likes it so much. Annabeth has never slowed things down, neither by accident nor on purpose, and Percy loves her.

His hands catch on her toga as they rove across her back, and he mumbles an apology into her mouth. She giggles- _giggles._

“Annabeth,” he says, breath blending with his words, “hey, Annabeth.”

She doesn’t respond, just runs her thumb over the skin behind his ear.

“How much have you had to drink?” Percy asks, hating every word. He doesn’t want this gentleness to be because of drunkenness, and he doesn’t want it to end, but he’s going to feel even more pathetic if he doesn’t check.

Annabeth pulls away, reluctantly. She stares over his shoulder. “I’m fine,” she says, voice stiff.

“Maybe I should get you home,” Percy says, brow starting to crease.

“No,” she snaps, and Percy winces. And then softer, “No. Can- can we just stay here for a little bit? I promise I’m fine.”

“Okay,” Percy says, cupping a hand under her jaw to bring her mouth back to his. This is everything their first kiss was not; it makes Percy feel like his brain in melting. It’s soft where she’s normally hard, warm where she’s normally burning, slow where she’s normally racing. He’s confused, so confused, but he’s not going to fight it. In this dark PKT rec room, with the sounds of what Percy’s pretty sure is Thriller coming up through the floorboards, there’s something that he doesn’t want to disturb, just absorb.

Percy _loves_ her.

***

“And that was Ophelia by The Lumineers,” Annabeth says, her radio voice smooth and deep. “Next up, Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen and then Judy Blue Eyes by Crosby, Stills, and Nash.”

Percy fiddles with the hem of his hoodie under the desk as Annabeth talks. They haven’t seen each other since the Halloween party, almost a week ago. Haven’t sent a single text. Percy’s going crazy with it; eventually they’d left the rec room after doing nothing more than kiss when a drunk fraternity brother had bumped into the door, and then Percy had lost track of Annabeth after she’d been dragged away by one of the girls on the track team. Percy doesn’t think they’ve ever kissed without banging at some point. He likes it, thinks about it all the time, but he has to keep reminding himself that it’s not going to become a habit.

Grover gives them the thumbs up once the piano comes in. “These two are super long, so you can probably go stretch your legs for a bit if you want,” he says, sipping espresso from his reusable mug like it’s not evening. “I’d say probably like twelve, thirteen minutes.”

“Thanks, Grover,” Annabeth says, before she gets up and moves to go into the office. Percy waits for one breath, two, before he gets up and goes after her. Talking about his feelings isn’t really Percy’s style, but the awkwardness between them is so bad right now that he’s willingly going to.

When he passes behind the shelf full of Dean Martin records, he sees that she’s sitting on the office desk, facing the coffee machine. It’s not on. It’s been getting colder, so she’s wearing a sweater, and her hair’s up in a ponytail. Percy’s heart does a little tap dance in his chest.

“Hey,” he says quietly. Annabeth’s gaze whips around to his, and Percy thinks he’s imagining the blush rising on her cheeks. Maybe it’s just hot inside. “Can we, uh. Talk about Halloween?”

“What’s there to talk about?” she says, sharp. He’s definitely not imaging the embarrassment taking over her face.

“Are you kidding me?” Percy says, closing the door. He’s very suddenly brought back to the first time they met.

“What about?” Annabeth snaps at him, standing. Her hands are curling into fists, Percy notes.

He takes a step towards her, but the office is so small that it brings them within a foot of each other. “Don’t play dumb, wise girl, we both know you’re not.”

“Oh, _wise girl?_ Are we really bringing out bad insults, fish boy? Or maybe you’d prefer _seaweed brain_ ,” she says, stepping even closer into his space, and that’s it. If she’s not going to even pretend to try to talk, Percy’s not going to chase after her for it. He kisses her instead.

His hand reaches out to grab her arm and yank her closer; she’s already reaching for him when he does. Their lips meet in a kiss that’s bruising, unforgiving. Annabeth sticks her tongue into his mouth, her hands fumbling to undo his belt. He hopes that no one needs to use the office before they get back.

“We have ten minutes, probably,” she says when Percy ducks to suck her earlobe into his mouth.

“We won’t need ten minutes,” he says. This- sex in and of itself- isn’t complicated with her. He knows what she likes, she knows what he likes, and that’s that. There’s nothing to dwell on, or solve. It’s familiar.

Annabeth huffs into his neck. His pants and his boxers drop to his ankles, and her hand comes around him to stroke him into hardness. It doesn’t take long.

“On the desk,” Percy says, undoing the button on her jeans. Undressing each other quickly is as easy as breathing, at this point. Annabeth yanks them down to her ankles before jumping up onto the desk surface, sweeping papers away as she goes. She squeaks.

Percy looks at her. She frowns back. “It’s cold!” she says, and then she’s kicking her jeans the rest of the way off one of her legs so she can wrap them around his. Percy swears and crouches to fish a condom out of his pocket. He tears off the wrapper and rolls it on as deftly as he can.

“Come on, Percy,” Annabeth says. So without further ado, he pushes inside her.

He sets a fast, rolling pace, in control because of the way Annabeth is sitting on the desk. He feels so bad for whoever’s in charge of cleaning the office- he might come back later and do it himself. Annabeth grips his shoulders, breath coming out heavy and fast. In between thrusts Percy sticks his hand in between them and rubs tight circles on Annabeth’s clit; she whines against him, quietly. He pants into her neck, feeling tension build in his gut. A few minutes later, he tips over the edge; he pushes their hips together, trying to ride out the aftershocks.

Over the speakers, Percy can hear that they’re maybe a couple of minutes into the second song. He pulls out without any ceremony, which makes Annabeth gasp against her fist, wraps up the condom in a wad of tissue, and throws it out as quick as he can. The rug burns when he drops to his knees in front of her.

“Percy,” Annabeth sighs. He doesn’t waste words, just grabs her by the ass to pull her onto his mouth. He laps, and sucks, and it’s not long before she’s throwing her head back and biting off a moan into her arm as she comes.

Percy gets to his feet, wiping off his slick chin with one hand. He wriggles back into his pants, and when he looks back at Annabeth she’s already redressed and looking as composed as ever but for the obvious flush still in her cheeks. The papers she shoved aside have been replaced in their original spots, neater than they were before.

Percy’s going to buy Grover’s espresso for a whole month for putting up with them. For a year.

They have a system worked out by now, so Annabeth goes first. Once Percy’s reached one hundred and twenty seconds, he goes after her, slipping back behind the desk with a good thirty seconds of song to spare. He avoids eye contact with Grover, who’s nervously biting into the rim of his mug like he intends to eat it.

The last strains of guitar play out, and Percy switches on his mic. “You’re listening to the Underclassmen Takeover on Olympus Air, and that was Judy Blue Eyes by Crosby, Stills, and Nash.”

***

>>From Annabeth: I was planning on going to a corn maze with an architecture friend, but she bailed on me [sent 5:20 PM]

>>From Annabeth: Do you want to come with me? [sent 5:22 PM]

>>From Annabeth: We were going to go tomorrow morning, let me know if that time works? [sent 5:22 PM]

>>From Annabeth: I know it’s a bit late in the season, but the weather’s still nice enough and I’m not really crazy about going by myself or paying for the Lyft there [sent 5:23 PM]

>>To Annabeth: i’m usually at the pool until like 10 on saturdays, is that okay [sent 5:25 PM]

>>To Annabeth: are u only using me for my car [sent 5:25 PM]

>>From Annabeth: No!!!!! [sent 5:25 PM]

>>From Annabeth: I mean no I’m not using you for you’re car [sent 5:25 PM]

>>From Annabeth: **your [sent 5:25 PM]

>>From Annabeth: And yeah, that works for me, I can meet you at the pool if that’s easier for you than coming to pick me up? [sent 5:26 PM]

>>To Annabeth: see you tomorrow ;) [sent 5:26 PM]

>>To Annabeth: **:) [sent 5:27 PM]

***

Percy’s legs feel like Jell-O as he pads out to the stands, shower wet hair dripping onto his forehead. He sees Annabeth sitting waiting for him, face in her hands and elbows on her knees. It’s cute- she’s cute. As he gets closer he sees that she’s wearing those little silver owl earrings, but she’s also put on some makeup, and nice clothes. It gives him pause, but his steps don’t slow. As much as he wants this to be a date, he knows it’s not. It’s just Annabeth needing to follow through on plans once they’ve been made, and he happens to be a convenient alternative. That’s all.

“Ready to go?” he asks, running a hand through his hair to get the worst of the drips out. She turns to look at him, and there’s a small smile on her face. Percy’s traitorous heart stutters.

“Don’t you have a coat?” she asks, picking up her bag.

“I’m still all warmed up, I’ll put it on once we get there,” Percy says. “You’re gonna have to help me with directions, though.”

“Don’t worry,” Annabeth laughs, leading the way out, “I always have a plan.”

Percy laughs with her.

The corn maze is about an hour outside the city, so Percy dutifully hands Annabeth the aux cord like a gracious car host.

“Just don’t play any Mariah Carey,” he teases, and dodges her when she swats at him.

It’s nice having Annabeth in his passenger seat, Percy thinks, before shaking himself out of it. _Don’t make this into more than it is_.

“Have you ever been to a corn maze?” Annabeth asks him, staring out the window.

“Yeah,” Percy says fondly, eyes on the road. “My mom used to take me every year. This and Montauk were our two annual trips.”

“My dad was never big into fun daytrips when I was a kid,” Annabeth says. She sounds kind of sad, and Percy grips the steering wheel tighter before he does something dumb like try to hold her hand. “And then by the time Bobby and Matthew were born, we’d moved to San Francisco and corn mazes weren’t as big as they were in Virginia.”

“Are you telling me that you’ve _never_ been to a corn maze before?” Percy asks incredulously. He chances a glance to his right to emphasize his surprise.

“I- yeah, I guess so,” she says, still looking out the window, but Percy can see a smile tugging at her lips.

“Well listen up, Wise Girl, because you’re about to have the best first corn maze experience that anyone’s ever had in the state of New York,” Percy says, grinning and looking back at the road through the windshield.

“Oh, we’re keeping that nickname, are we?” Annabeth says, laughing a little.

“Yes ma’am,” Percy says. “And change the song, I’m sick of Sweater Weather.”

“Sweater Weather is _the_ fall song!” Annabeth protests beside him.

“Yeah, well, I swear you’ve already played it twice, so you can either play something else or hitch hike the rest of the way there,” Percy says, laughing.

“You’ve such a seaweed brain,” Annabeth says darkly, and Percy smiles even wider.

When they get there, Percy sees that there’s also a pumpkin patch, wiped mostly clean post-Halloween, and a concession stand where they’re selling hot apple cider and cider donuts. The early November air is clean and crisp.

In short, it’s perfect.

Percy turns to Annabeth. She’s looking at everything around them; Percy can see her storing the information away. He’s so fond he could burst.

_Not a date_ , he reminds himself.

“What do you want to do first?” he asks, stuffing his hands into his pockets.

“I don’t know,” Annabeth says, a pretty flush from the cold air creeping onto her cheeks. “What do you think, since you’ve done this before?”

Percy hums in thought. “Well, the maze takes the longest, and the pumpkins are pretty wiped out, so maybe let’s start with the maze and then get some snacks when we get out?”

Annabeth smiles at him. “Let’s go, then.”

They end up getting lost in the corn maze for a good half hour, turning back on their paths and going in loops. It’s the most fun Percy’s ever had at one of these (don’t tell his mom). He expects Annabeth to get frustrated every time they pass by the same scarecrow, and it’s true that she does the first couple of times, but by the fifth or sixth she’s in stitches.

“Percy!” she laughs, holding on to him for balance through the giggles, “Percy, you’re leading us the wrong way again!”

“Me?” Percy says in fake outrage, pushing her shoulder lightly. “You’re the one who told us to turn left, Wise Girl!”

“Seaweed Brain!” she calls back, smiling up at him, breathless, and Percy’s so in love.

_Not a date_ , he reminds himself.

“Come on,” he says, pulling himself free. “Let’s try this way.”

They stumble out, in the end, and Percy’s cheeks hurt from smiling. They get steaming Styrofoam cups of apple cider and a bag of still-warm apple cider donuts to split between them.

“You have cinnamon sugar on your face,” Annabeth says after Percy’s inhaled his third donut.

“Huh?” he says, going crossed eyed to look.

“Just- here,” she laughs, and swipes a finger over his cheek. She licks the cinnamon sugar off, and it shouldn’t make Percy blush but it does. A conflicted look goes over Annabeth’s face after. Percy tries not to dwell on it.

The drive back is mostly in silence, power lines keeping them company as they head back into the city. Annabeth plays soft songs the whole time, and it gives Percy too much time to think. There’s a soft, warm feeling spreading through his whole body. When Percy pulls up in front of her dorm building, Annabeth turns in her seat to face him.

“Thanks for coming with me,” she says, uncharacteristically subdued. “I…had a really nice time.”

“I’m glad,” Percy says good-naturedly. “Whenever you wanna hit up another corn maze, I’m your guy.”

Annabeth smiles at him again, but it’s a little tight. Percy’s about to ask what’s wrong when she leans forward across the gear shift and kisses him, gentle and sweet.

“See you around, Percy,” she says, closing the door behind her. Percy’s struck dumb as she walks away, watching her retreating back. At the door, she turns and waves, and Percy waves back automatically.

He turns his key in the ignition and hears his car whine as it starts up. He needs to get gas, he notes, looking at his fuel gauge. The interior smells like the leftover donuts, shoved into a cupholder.

_Not a date?_ he asks himself.


End file.
